Ethereum Sets Quantum Resistance Target for December 2029

The Ethereum Foundation has set a quantum resistance target for December 2029, which will require the development of multiple forks in parallel. The cluster graded all 62 Ethereum Improvement Proposals submitted for Hegotá and designated only two as 'must ship': FOCIL (EIP-7805) and Frame Transactions (EIP-8141). These proposals aim to make account validation, execution, and gas payment programmable at the protocol level.

The Foundation plans for 'Q-day' as early as 2030 but acknowledges that most estimates put it later. Meeting the target would require an average cadence of 7.2 months per fork. A fallback milestone two forks after Hegotá could be reached on a 12-month cadence, keeping Ethereum running through Q-day with reduced guarantees.

FOCIL and Frame Transactions are the consensus- and execution-layer headliners for Hegotá. The cluster identifies them as must ship together safely because their interaction creates the fork's main engineering and testing burden. FOCIL lets multiple validators require eligible transactions to appear in a block, reducing users' dependence on centralized block builders.

The ranking is not a final network-wide scope decision but one input to Hegotá scoping. The Foundation described it as 'one input to Hegotá scoping,' albeit the first unified tier list from the Protocol cluster.