Ethereum Researchers Push Privacy Proposals for 2027 Hegotá Upgrade, but Reports Disagree on the Details

4 min readPublished 18 Aug 2026

Ethereum Foundation researchers are pushing to make privacy a first-class feature of the network’s next major upgrade, rather than something bolted on by outside services. But the two outlets that reported the story on August 17 don’t agree on which proposal numbers attach to which features — a discrepancy that says something about how unsettled this package still is.

According to Decrypt, Ethereum Foundation researcher Toni Wahrstätter posted on X that the Protocol Architecture team wants two proposals prioritized for Hegotá, the 2027 upgrade: EIP-8141, called Frame Transactions, which would hand wallets greater control over transaction execution, and EIP-7805 — Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists, or FOCIL — designed to make censoring eligible transactions harder.

Decrypt quoted Wahrstätter directly: “Together with Frames, these enable privacy pools where the pool itself can pay fees, removing the need for intermediaries.” He added, per Decrypt, that “Add FOCIL support and privacy transactions also gain protocol-level inclusion guarantees.”

Crypto Briefing, in an unattributed editorial account, describes the same centerpiece proposal — EIP-8141, which it also calls “Frame Transactions” — as enabling what it terms gas fee abstraction from pooled funds, so that privacy pools can cover their own transaction costs without an outside relay submitting on a user’s behalf.

Where the two reports agree

Decrypt and Crypto Briefing align on several core facts. Both report that developers are considering 66 proposals in total for Hegotá, the upgrade planned for 2027. Both report that FOCIL, EIP-7805, is currently the only proposal confirmed for inclusion. And both describe EIP-8141’s basic mechanism the same way: it would let privacy pools pay their own fees rather than depend on an intermediary to submit transactions, a design meant to close off a metadata trail that can otherwise expose a sender’s wallet activity.

Both outlets also place Hegotá on the same broader calendar. It follows Glamsterdam, the upgrade Decrypt reports developers aim to ship by the end of 2026; Crypto Briefing describes the same upgrade as expected in Q4 2026 and says it addresses different parts of Ethereum’s roadmap before Hegotá’s privacy work arrives in 2027.

Where they diverge

The two reports also can’t agree on what FOCIL’s acronym stands for: Decrypt calls it “Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists,” while Crypto Briefing calls it “Focused Inclusion Lists.” Neither outlet explains the difference, a small but real sign that even the terminology around this package isn’t fully settled.

The reports break apart further on the supporting cast of EIPs. Decrypt says the fee-abstraction mechanism in Frame Transactions works alongside a separate proposal, Keyed Nonces and Recent Roots, which it identifies as EIP-8272. Crypto Briefing describes a proposal it calls EIP-8250 that addresses the same underlying problem — an observer linking multiple private transactions by analyzing nonce patterns — using near-identical language about “keyed nonces.” Neither report explains why the numbering differs, and nothing in either account resolves whether these are the same proposal cited under two different EIP numbers or genuinely separate items competing for a place in the Hegotá package.

Decrypt also cites a proposal called Transaction Assertions, EIP-7906, which it says would let wallets set conditions on what a transaction can do after submission — a proposal Crypto Briefing does not mention at all. Conversely, Crypto Briefing alone describes EIP-8182, which it says would introduce a native shared shielded pool for anonymous ETH and ERC-20 token transfers, letting users prove funds are legitimate to regulators without exposing their full transaction history. Decrypt’s article contains no reference to EIP-8182.

There is also a sourcing gap worth flagging directly: Decrypt’s account traces to a named individual, Wahrstätter, quoting his posts on X on Monday and an earlier post on Saturday. Crypto Briefing’s version carries no named source, individual or institutional, for its EIP-8182 and EIP-8250 claims — it reads as a secondhand synthesis rather than a report sourced to a specific person or document.

The broader push

Both outlets tie the proposals to a wider campaign led by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Decrypt reports Buterin has pushed for privacy, quantum-resistant security, and reduced reliance on layer-2 networks, and notes that in February he outlined plans to replace cryptography vulnerable to quantum computers while researchers proposed a roadmap for faster transactions, native privacy, and quantum resistance through 2029. Decrypt adds that earlier this month Buterin said privacy and quantum resistance had become greater priorities alongside simplifying and scaling the network.

Crypto Briefing frames the same push around Privacy Pools, a compliant selective-disclosure protocol it says Buterin has publicly championed, and argues Frame Transactions would remove one of that protocol’s current friction points — the need for a relayer to submit transactions on a user’s behalf.

Decrypt also reports that other proposals under review touch scaling rather than privacy, including changes to how Ethereum prices transactions and handles state growth as the network’s gas limit rises toward 500 million to 600 million, plus proposals to separate block-access-list data from the execution payload and to test optional zkEVM proofs on mainnet. Decrypt cites Wahrstätter noting developers are 256 days into Glamsterdam as of his post.

What remains unresolved

The core open question is which EIP numbers will actually survive review. Only FOCIL is confirmed, per both outlets. Whether EIP-8141, the disputed keyed-nonces proposal (numbered 8272 by Decrypt and 8250 by Crypto Briefing), EIP-7906, and EIP-8182 make the final Hegotá package is unresolved and, per Crypto Briefing, still subject to what it calls months of technical review, security auditing, and community debate.

Decrypt quoted Wahrstätter cautioning that a fork should not be treated as a wishlist assembled by the community or by core developers pushing pet features, adding that developers instead “have to decide what Ethereum should become next, and what has to wait.” That framing underscores the gap between a list of 66 proposals under discussion and a confirmed upgrade specification.