Ethereum Foundation seeks protocol feedback to sharpen EIP development

Ethereum’s governance machinery is getting a tune-up. The Ethereum Foundation’s App Enablement team is reaching out to protocol teams to collect feedback on Ethereum Improvement Proposals and Layer 1 constraints, an effort designed to make sure the core protocol’s roadmap actually reflects what application developers need.

The broader context for the App Enablement team’s outreach is the EF Protocol Cluster’s work on the Hegotá upgrade, expected in 2027. On September 7, 2026, the Protocol Cluster published its first-ever tier list for the upgrade, covering 62 EIPs.

The evaluation drew on feedback from approximately 60 researchers and engineers spread across nine separate teams, generating a total of 397 individual grades.

Two proposals reached S-tier, the top of the ranking: EIP-7805, known as FOCIL, and EIP-8141, called Frame Transactions. S-tier designation means these are considered must-ship components of the Hegotá core, the proposals without which the upgrade loses its central purpose.

FOCIL is a fork-choice enforced inclusion list proposal aimed at improving censorship resistance at the validator level. Frame Transactions, EIP-8141, relates to account abstraction improvements.

Below S-tier, 15 EIPs received an A-tier rating, meaning they are expected to ship with Hegotá unless the overall scope of the upgrade gets trimmed. Seven EIPs landed in C-tier, and two remain in a holding pattern pending additional data.

At the other end of the spectrum, 28 proposals were declined for inclusion, with the Protocol Cluster providing documented rationale for each rejection.

The App Enablement team’s outreach fits into a larger structural effort at the Ethereum Foundation. The EF’s Platform team has been working to ensure that ecosystem requirements, meaning what wallets, DeFi protocols, rollup operators, and developers actually need at the application layer, feed into protocol-level decisions before those decisions get locked in.

The deadline for client-team preference submissions was September 10, 2026, a few days after the tier list was published. The Protocol Cluster also scheduled a public Reddit AMA for September 16, 2026, as a forum for discussing EIP preferences and the rationale behind tier assignments.

Publishing a tier list with documented rationales for all 62 evaluated EIPs, including the 28 that were declined, gives every team involved a clearer picture of the playing field. For EIP-7805 and EIP-8141, S-tier status sets a high bar for what Hegotá is expected to deliver. FOCIL’s focus on censorship resistance addresses one of the more persistent concerns about Ethereum’s validator set. Frame Transactions’ account abstraction angle extends work that began with EIP-4337.

The involvement of approximately 60 contributors across nine teams signals that the evaluation is meant to represent a broad cross-section of Ethereum’s technical community. With 397 grades on record, there’s a documented basis for every tier assignment.