Ethereum’s All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep up with, so this “Checkpoint” series aims for high-level updates roughly every 4-8 weeks, depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update here.
If you enjoy reading core development updates, you may also be keen to learn that Forkcast now publishes call summaries, chats and transcripts for each All Core Dev (ACD) call and some breakout calls, usually available within a couple hours of the call.
tl;dr:
The Fusaka upgrade shipped alongside the ability to adjust blob parameters independently from fork cycles. The next upgrade, Glamsterdam, is fully scoped and progress is underway while the major feature(s) of the following upgrade, Hegotá, are now being proposed, with a proposal deadline of February 4th.
Fusaka
Since the last Checkpoint, the Fusaka upgrade went live, bringing scaling in the form of Data Availability Sampling to Ethereum.
Both the @ethereum and Vitalik took to Twitter to explain PeerDAS, why scaling securely matters, and how these improvements fit in the grander scheme of things.
BPO forks
Blob Parameter Only forks are now a reality – Ethereum now can and has already increased the blob count without having to wait through an entire fork cycle, scaling as needed for L2 usage. The first two BPO forks were stress-tested successfully and baked into Fusaka, with the first going live a few days after Fusaka and the second in the beginning of January. Ethereum now targets 14 blobs per block and allows a maximum of 21 – a 2.3x increase for L2 data space compared to pre-Fusaka!
Developers spoke about what was needed to be ready for a third BPO fork but agreed that it’s not a priority until blob usage ticks up to use the existing increases.
Glamsterdam
Progress on Glamsterdam’s two headliners, enshrined Proposer Builder Separation (ePBS) and Block-level Access Lists (BALs) is moving along but ePBS is a much more complex change than BALs so while the latter already has devnets, it’ll be a bit longer before we see a devnet for ePBS.
Timeline
As with every fork, headliners will need to be brought to a stable place on devnets before beginning to add in variables in the form of more EIPs. As developers have finally whittled the list of proposed non-headlining features down from 50 to a more manageable set of 17 necessary and high-impact features, they’ll be adding these features to devnets in small sets until the fork is ready. If some prove to be problematic or could result in too much delay of the overall fork, they may choose to remove them from the “Considered” set. The full list of Considered features is:
- EIP-2780: Reduce intrinsic transaction gas
- EIP-7688: Forward compatible consensus data structures
- EIP-7708: ETH transfers emit a log
- EIP-7778: Block Gas Accounting without Refunds
- EIP-7843: SLOTNUM opcode
- EIP-7904: General Repricing
- EIP-7954: Increase Maximum Contract Size
- EIP-7976: Increase Calldata Floor Cost
- EIP-7981: Increase Access List Cost
- EIP-7997: Deterministic Factory Predeploy
- EIP-8024: Backward compatible SWAPN, DUPN, EXCHANGE
- EIP-8037: State Creation Gas Cost Increase
- EIP-8038: State-access gas cost increase
- EIP-8045: Exclude slashed validators from proposing
- EIP-8061: Increase exit and consolidation churn
- EIP-8070: Sparse Blobpool
- EIP-8080: Let exits use the consolidation queue
Expect a better timeline once we’ve had a stable first ePBS devnet, and then even more clarity once every EIP has been tested in a devnet.
Hegota
A quick note on the name change: the original H-star name, Heka, was replaced with Heze after a community developer noted that “Heka” is not in the International Astronomers Union catalog, which all previous chosen star names have been. The fork name is Heze + Bogotá: Hegotá.
FOCIL
Fork-choice Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), a censorship resistance mechanism, was moved out of Glamsterdam to cut down on fork scope. Given its strong support among core devs and the general Ethereum community alike, it was moved to Considered status for Hegotá and will be evaluated alongside any other headliner proposals – as of this post, there is only one competing proposal.
See an overview of FOCIL and its readiness for Hegotá here.
Timeline
Anyone can propose a headlining feature for Hegotá before the February 4th deadline using the template on the Ethereum Magicians forum.
The proposals will then be presented on ACD calls by the proposer and community feedback will be solicited. The goal is to decide on Hegota’s headlining features by February 26th. Following that decision, minor (non-headlining) features can be proposed – a deadline for these proposals will be given, so be sure to keep up with Checkpoint. Like the headliner proposals, anyone can propose a non-headliner – they just should be willing to see it through.
Jan 8th – Feb 4th: Headliner proposals [ NOW ]
Feb 5th – Feb 26th: Headliner discussion & finalization
30 days following headliner decision, deadline TBD: Non-headliner EIP proposals
Process
If you’ve ever wondered how a person gets a feature they want into Ethereum, there’s a 2026 guide to shepherding a feature into a fork here. A proposed feature for Ethereum, called an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), is first specified using the very first EIP as a guide: EIP-1, then proposed during a designated window, and championed through the process by a technical point-of-contact.
Getting through the 50 proposed non-headliner features for Glamsterdam was an absolute beast and everybody felt it. This fork having so many proposals may be a result of increased high-context participants or a result of the process being a little clearer – devs now know when and how to propose their features. Because client and testing teams are the ones actually doing the work to implement these changes, they have to familiarize themselves with proposals and make recommendations on the most urgent and high-impact changes – going through 50 specs to make informed recommendations is a lot of homework!
I do expect more Hegotá headliner proposals to compete with FOCIL and encrypted mempools. FOCIL is a cross-layer EIP, meaning it touches both the consensus and execution layers and in particular the engine API, which all makes it somewhat complicated to pair with another complex feature change. There’s been some conversation around 6-second slots but it’s unclear whether it will be proposed for Hegotá or wait for I-star. Whichever major feature is your preference, I do suggest actively showing your support for it during the February discussion period.
Relevant ACD calls:
[ November 14th – January 19th ]
