Is Ethereum About To Get Native Privacy?

66 Proposals, One Confirmed Slot

Ethereum core developers are working through a list of 66 proposals as they begin scoping the Hegotá upgrade, the next major network hard fork targeted for 2027. Over the next few core developer calls, that list will be narrowed down to the EIPs that get implementations, devnets, testnets, and a realistic chance of shipping.

FOCIL is currently the only Ethereum Improvement Proposal scheduled for confirmed inclusion in the upgrade. FOCIL, short for Fork-choice enforced inclusion lists, seeks to allow a committee of validators to force pending transactions into blocks, boosting the network's censorship resistance.

At the August 13 All Core Developers Execution call, teams agreed to compare EIP-8141 with EIP-8130 at an August 25 breakout session, with a decision targeted for the August 27 ACDE meeting. Core developers aim to finalize the broader list by late August. Proposals that do not make the cut for Hegotá could be deferred to a later network upgrade.

Privacy EIPs Under the Microscope

Three proposals in particular have drawn attention for their potential to bring privacy capabilities directly into the base protocol. Frame Transactions (EIP-8141), Keyed Nonces (EIP-8250) and Recent Roots for Frame Transactions (EIP-8272) would provide protocol primitives that could be used by privacy-preserving applications.

Ethereum Foundation contributor Toni Wahrstätter has argued those three EIPs should be included to "unlock native privacy, allowing privacy apps to work without having to rely on intermediaries." Wahrstätter argued that Frame Transactions should join FOCIL, alongside Keyed Nonces and Recent Roots, as part of a native privacy stack, though that remains his position rather than a core developer decision.

Privacy protocols, which obscure transaction details from public view, currently depend on third-party relay services to get transactions included on-chain. The three EIPs are designed to address that dependency at the protocol level. EIP-8141, for example, changes how a transaction can be structured so that validation, execution, and gas payment can be separated, allowing an account to more freely define how an operation is authorized and how its fees are paid. Keyed Nonces as proposed in EIP-8250 would replace the single global nonce format with a structure that lets a single sender manage many separate nonce tracks at once, paving the way for concurrent trustless activity around privacy projects.

Over the next developer calls and especially the first devnets, the fate of EIP-8141, EIP-8250 and EIP-8272 should become clearer, though talking about "native privacy" remains premature for now. Hegotá will follow the Glamsterdam upgrade, which the public roadmap lists as improving scalability, hardening layer 1 and improving usability, with its mainnet launch expected in the second half of 2026.

Sources:
CoinTelegraph: Ethereum Devs to Narrow 66 Proposals Tied to Hegotá Upgrade
GNCrypto: Ethereum Narrows 66 Proposals for Hegota Upgrade
Crypto.news: Ethereum Hegotá Narrows 2027 Upgrade Proposals