Ethereum's Next Upgrade "Hegotá" Enters Planning Stage, 66 EIPs Compete for the 2027 Hard Fork

Odaily News Ethereum developer Toni Wahrstätter stated on the X platform that Ethereum core developers are planning the next annual upgrade, "Hegotá", with 66 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) currently on the candidate list. In the coming core developer meetings, these proposals will be filtered to ultimately determine the upgrade contents that can complete implementation, devnet testing, testnet deployment, and have the potential to launch in 2027. Proposals that fail to be included in Hegotá will be postponed to the next hard fork, making the current screening process highly significant for the future direction of Ethereum's development.

Currently, FOCIL (Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists) has been confirmed as one of the key upgrade components of Hegotá. Developers believe that combining it with scoped transactions (EIP-8141), keyed nonces (EIP-8250), and root references (EIP-8272) could help build native privacy capabilities, enabling privacy applications to operate without relying on third-party intermediaries.

Additionally, enhancing scalability is also a key direction for Hegotá. Developers have proposed repricing data resources (EIP-8131, EIP-8279) and state growth costs (EIP-8368) to prepare for a future increase of the Gas limit to 600 million. While these improvements are less intuitive than privacy features, they are considered critical work for advancing Ethereum's scaling in the short term.

Other candidate upgrades include shorter block times (EIP-8198), issuance mechanism adjustments (EIP-8363), anti-correlation penalty mechanisms (EIP-7716), EVM optimization and simplification, as well as the first round of EIP discussions related to zkEVM and quantum-resistant cryptography.

It is noted that Hegotá cannot include all features expected by the community. The core team will need to strike a balance between the "future vision" and "near-term deliverable upgrades," and most candidate EIPs may ultimately not make it into this upgrade.

Currently, 256 days have passed since the launch of the current Glamsterdam upgrade, with the goal of completing deployment by the end of this year. Hegotá is planned to launch in 2027, and in the coming months, core developers and the community will engage in discussions around the prioritization of various EIPs. Community feedback will still play a role in the selection process, and participants who support or oppose a particular EIP's inclusion in Hegotá can voice their opinions to the core development team through public discussions.