Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated that the upcoming Hegota upgrade, planned for next year, will likely be the final conventional fork for the network. In a blog post published on September 27, he noted that subsequent developments will shift toward advanced cryptography, including recursive STARKs, quantum-safe designs, and automated formal verification.
The Hegota upgrade is currently in the early planning stages. According to Ethereum.org, the fork will introduce Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) to allow validator committees to propose transaction lists, and frame transactions, which enable accounts to implement custom verification logic and select quantum-resistant signatures.
Buterin outlined a long-term vision for 2030, where Ethereum nodes will rely on cryptographic proofs and Peer Data Availability Sampling rather than re-executing every block. He targets slot times of approximately 4 to 8 seconds and finality within 8 to 32 seconds, a significant improvement over the 200 seconds required for 12 confirmations in 2015.
Before Hegota, the network is preparing for the Glamsterdam upgrade. The Sepolia testnet fork for Glamsterdam is set for October 6, with the mainnet launch projected for the fourth quarter of 2026. Buterin acknowledged that challenges remain, particularly in optimizing zero-knowledge proofs and managing large amounts of state data.
