Ethereum’s next big upgrade has 66 proposals, including a major privacy fix

Ethereum developers are deciding whether the blockchain’s next major upgrade, Hegotá, should make it easier to build private transactions without relying on middlemen.

As with other blockchains, all Ethereum addresses are permanent and hold a running balance, so anyone can read an address’s full history and see what it holds. That presents a problem for payroll, treasury operations or anyone who would rather not publish their finances.

Dealing with that has been left to applications built on top of Ethereum. A package now under consideration would move part of the job into the network itself.

The centerpiece is Frame Transactions, or Ethereum Improvement Proposal 8141 (EIP-8141), which 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 are bundled into one payment, or the cryptography approving a transaction changes without moving to a new account.

Toni Wahrstätter, an Ethereum Foundation researcher and a co-author of the proposal, set out the case for it in an X post as developers began narrowing Hegotá’s scope.

Private payment systems on Ethereum can already hide information using cryptographic proofs, but getting those transactions onto the blockchain still takes extra infrastructure, and some designs route users through relayers, outside services that submit the transaction on their behalf.

Frame Transactions is one of 66 proposals on the table for Hegotá, expected to follow this year’s Glamsterdam release and ship in 2027, and developers will now consider what they can realistically build, test and release on time.

Two accompanying proposals handle what breaks when many people transact privately through the same account. Keyed Nonces, or EIP-8250, would let transactions use separate counters instead of queueing behind a single one, so a delayed transaction no longer holds up everything behind it.

Separately, EIP-8272 would let a transaction prove itself against a recent cryptographic record without depending on information that might change while it waits.

Together, the three would remove some of the outside infrastructure privacy applications currently need.

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

Frame Transactions is not guaranteed to ship. While it has been marked as considered for Hegotá, that falls short of approval, to progress.

Only one change has been approved so far, and it relates to censorship. Currently, the company or operator assembling a block decides which waiting transactions go into it, and can leave some out. The approved change, called FOCIL, lets a group of network operators compile a list of transactions that must be included, taking that decision away from any single builder.

Other proposals would speed up how quickly blocks are produced, alter what validators earn for securing the network, and prepare Ethereum for cryptography that can withstand quantum computers.

The deadline for new proposals passed on Aug. 6. What survives from here gets decided over the next few core developer meetings.