Ethereum Sets 2029 Quantum-Resistance Goal as Hegotá Upgrade Takes Shape
The Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol team has ranked 62 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) ahead of the planned Hegotá upgrade, identifying two as essential components of the fork.
The proposals placed in the top S-tier category are FOCIL and Frame Transactions. Ethereum’s upgrade timetable will be built around delivering both safely, with developers also planning to test how the two proposals interact.
On Ethereum’s consensus layer, Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), or EIP-7805, received the highest priority. The proposal aims to make censorship more difficult by giving a validator committee the ability to require valid transactions from the public mempool to be included.
That could reduce the influence of a single dominant block builder, which could otherwise prevent certain valid transactions from making it into blocks.
The second S-tier proposal, Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), targets Ethereum’s execution layer. Its goal is to bring account abstraction more directly into the protocol while also laying groundwork for stronger security against future threats, including quantum computing.
Under the proposal, transactions would be divided into programmable “frames” that can separately handle validation, gas payments and execution. This could give wallets more flexibility, including support for custom signature schemes, sponsored transaction fees and bundled actions without depending on external operators.
The Protocol team said safely delivering both proposals, along with testing their interaction, represents the central engineering task for Hegotá.
Several supporting EIPs make the cut
The Foundation also placed several proposals in its A-tier category. These are expected to ship alongside the two headline upgrades unless development constraints force some of them to be removed.
Among them are VOPS Profiles for FOCIL Eligibility (EIP-8369), which is intended to accompany FOCIL, as well as Keyed Nonces for Frame Transactions (EIP-8250) and Recent Roots for Frame Transactions (EIP-8272), which are tied to Frame Transactions.
B-tier proposals will be assessed individually rather than being accepted as a group, while C-tier items remain lower-priority candidates. They have not been ruled out completely.
At the other end of the ranking, 28 EIPs were classified as DFI, or declined for inclusion in the upgrade.
Ethereum targets quantum resistance by 2029
Beyond Hegotá, the Protocol team outlined a longer-term objective for Ethereum's Layer 1 network.
Its stated target is to make the Ethereum L1 stack resistant to quantum attacks across the execution, consensus and data layers by December 2029.
The team said the deadline is designed to force preparation before the arrival of what researchers commonly refer to as “Q-day” — the point at which sufficiently powerful quantum computers could threaten existing cryptographic systems.
Ethereum’s developers are planning around the possibility that Q-day could arrive as early as 2030, even though the team acknowledged that many estimates place it further into the future.
The 2029 deadline will remain a firm target, at least until a planned reassessment in January 2027 involving external experts and updated research into quantum computing.
Hegotá itself is not expected to deliver Ethereum’s final post-quantum solution. Instead, the upgrade is being positioned as an important checkpoint for keeping later upgrades on schedule.
Under the current roadmap, a minimum viable post-quantum milestone is expected at a future fork known as J*, with complete resistance targeted for a later L* upgrade.
Tight upgrade schedule ahead
The timeline is demanding.
If Ethereum ships Glamsterdam in the fourth quarter of 2026 and still wants to reach its December 2029 quantum-resistance target, the network would need to average roughly 7.2 months per fork.
That leaves limited room for delays.
Ethereum plans to develop several upgrades simultaneously rather than waiting for one fork to finish before starting work on the next. Hegotá is expected to ship while specifications for I* are still being developed, while research connected to J* through L* will also move forward in parallel.
Post-quantum security is now one of five major research tracks identified by the Protocol team. The other four focus on fast finality, privacy, Ethereum’s state and zkEVM development.
The broader message is clear: Ethereum does not want quantum security to become an emergency project once the technology arrives. Developers want the network ready well before that point.
For Ethereum, the 2029 target is therefore less about predicting exactly when quantum computers will become dangerous and more about making sure the protocol is prepared if that happens sooner than expected.