Ethereum Foundation Sets 2029 Deadline for Quantum‑Resistant Chain and Focuses on FOCIL and Frame Transactions
What the protocol cluster announced
The Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol cluster set a firm deadline of December 2029 to make Ethereum’s base layer (Layer 1) quantum‑resistant across execution, consensus and data. The same decision trims the scope of the planned Hegotá upgrade that follows the upcoming Glamsterdam hard fork.
Key points
- Only two of the 62 proposals for Hegotá received a “must‑ship” (S‑tier) label: EIP‑7805 (FOCIL) and EIP‑8141 (Frame Transactions).
- Other proposals were given lower priority or declined, including a tapered issuance burn and a mandatory execution‑reward burn.
- The quantum‑resistance deadline is fixed, not tied to an estimated arrival of a quantum computer, and will be reassessed in January 2027.
- Meeting the goal would require five new forks after Glamsterdam, averaging about 7.2 months per fork.
Details on the two must‑ship proposals
FOCIL (EIP‑7805) would let multiple validators require that eligible transactions be included in a block, reducing reliance on centralized block builders. Frame Transactions (EIP‑8141) would make account validation, execution and gas payment programmable at the protocol level, opening a path for new signature schemes without separate hard forks.
Both upgrades are linked: they must be deployed together because their interaction creates the main engineering and testing workload for the fork.
Other graded proposals
Quick Slots, which would shorten the time between blocks, received a B‑grade and may be revisited after the S‑ and A‑tier devnets are stable. Independent consensus‑ and execution‑layer syncing, Hash‑Chain RANDAO, and two gas‑limit proposals were also given lower or pending grades.
Potential impact on future roadmap
The deadline could shift later milestones. Currently, mandatory execution proofs are slated for the K* fork and post‑quantum attestations for L*. The Foundation is considering moving attestations forward to K* and pushing execution proofs to L*.
