The Ethereum Foundation has rated 62 proposals for the upcoming Hegotá network upgrade, drawing on 397 assessments from about 60 protocol specialists across nine teams. A companion document sets December 2029 as the deadline for making Ethereum's Layer 1 resistant to quantum computer attacks.
Foundation ranks 62 Hegotá proposals
The Ethereum Foundation said in a Sept. 7 post on X that its Protocol Cluster had released two articles on Hegotá and the network's longer-term priorities. The first, called the Hegotá EIP Opinion Post and Tier List, evaluates all 62 Ethereum Improvement Proposals under consideration for the upgrade — the Protocol Cluster's first shared tier list for a single upgrade.
About 60 researchers, engineers, and specialists from nine teams submitted 397 individual ratings, and live discussions let teams compare technical benefits, development costs, and possible conflicts before Hegotá's scope is settled. The ratings do not guarantee mainnet inclusion; client developers, researchers, and the wider community still have to assess which changes can be built and tested within Hegotá's schedule. Ethereum's public roadmap currently places Hegotá in 2027, after the Glamsterdam upgrade planned for Q4 2026, though that timing remains open to revision.
Quantum resistance becomes a 2029 commitment
The Protocol Cluster's second article, Current and Emerging Priorities, sets December 2029 as the deadline for a quantum-resistant Ethereum Layer 1. Fredrik Svantes, who leads protocol coordination at the Ethereum Foundation, said in a separate X post that the cluster is "aggressively targeting" that outcome no later than December 2029, and that the commitment shapes which Hegotá proposals the teams recommend.
Ethereum is not quantum-resistant today, though the Foundation's documentation says current hardware remains far below the capacity a successful attack would require. Preparation spans user accounts, validator signatures, consensus, data availability, and zero-knowledge proofs, each with different performance and migration demands.
In June, an Ethereum researcher said users could add post-quantum protection through smart contract logic for about $0.07 per account using SPHINCS-based signatures, though that method alone would not make the whole network quantum-resistant. A draft submitted Aug. 24 separately proposes a replacement validator deposit contract that would accept variable-length public keys to support future signature schemes alongside Ethereum's existing BLS deposits.
US standards add pressure to the timeline
Ethereum's 2029 target sits close to the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's own post-quantum transition. NIST approved three post-quantum standards in August 2024, covering a key-encapsulation method and two digital-signature systems, and its transition plan calls for quantum-vulnerable algorithms to be phased out of federal standards by 2035. Ethereum's commitment creates no U.S. regulatory requirement for ETH holders or exchanges, but it falls within that federal migration window, giving American infrastructure providers a reference point for their own systems.
The Foundation has scheduled a Reddit AMA for Sept. 16 at 14:00 UTC in r/ethereum, where Protocol Cluster members will take questions on the Hegotá rankings and the priorities outlined in both articles.
Source: crypto.news
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