Ethereum weighs 66 proposals for Hegotá as privacy package advances

Ethereum developers are weighing 66 proposals for the 2027 Hegotá upgrade, including a package to let privacy pools pay their own fees without intermediaries.

"Together with Frames, these enable privacy pools where the pool itself can pay fees, removing the need for intermediaries," Toni Wahrstätter, an Ethereum Foundation researcher and co-author of the proposal, said on X. "Add FOCIL support and privacy transactions also gain protocol-level inclusion guarantees."

The centerpiece is EIP-8141, or Frame Transactions, which would give accounts more control over how transactions are approved, executed, and paid for. Two accompanying proposals — EIP-8250 (Keyed Nonces) and EIP-8272 (Recent Roots) — would let transactions use separate counters and verify against recent cryptographic records, reducing the outside infrastructure privacy applications currently need. The package also includes Transaction Assertions (EIP-7906), which would let wallets set conditions on what a transaction can do after submission.

Only FOCIL (EIP-7805), a censorship-resistance measure that lets a group of network operators compile a list of transactions block builders must include, has been confirmed for Hegotá. The deadline for new proposals passed Aug. 6, and core developers will narrow the list over the next several meetings. Glamsterdam, the upgrade preceding Hegotá, is targeted for end of 2026 — developers are 256 days into that cycle.

Frame Transactions: 3 EIPs that reshape fee payment

Private payment systems on Ethereum already use cryptographic proofs to hide transaction details, but getting those transactions on-chain still requires extra infrastructure. Some designs route users through relayers — outside services that submit transactions on their behalf. Frame Transactions would let an account define how a transaction is approved, executed, and paid for, rather than forcing every user through the same setup. For an ordinary user, that could mean a wallet where someone else covers the fee, several actions bundled into one payment, or different approval cryptography without moving to a new account.

Ethereum itself would not become private. Sending ETH between two normal addresses would remain as visible as it is today. The hiding is still done by applications, which would simply need less outside machinery to do it.

The proposals come as Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has pushed for major changes to the network, including greater privacy, quantum-resistant security, and less reliance on layer-2 networks. In February, Buterin outlined plans to replace cryptography vulnerable to quantum computers. Other Hegotá proposals under consideration focus on scaling, including changes to how Ethereum prices transactions and state growth as the gas limit rises toward 500 million to 600 million.

"A fork can't be a wishlist by the community or core devs jamming on what Ethereum should eventually become," Wahrstätter wrote in an earlier post. "Instead, we have to decide what Ethereum should become next, and what has to wait."

Frame Transactions is not guaranteed to ship. It has been marked as considered for Hegotá, which falls short of approval. What survives from here gets decided over the next few core developer meetings.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.