Ethereum’s All Core Developer calls are a lot to keep track of, so this “Checkpointseries aims for high-level updates approximately every 4-8 weeks depending on what’s happening in core development. See the previous update here.
If you enjoy reading the most important development updates, you might also like to get to know that Forkcast now publishes conversation summaries, chats and transcripts for every All Core Dev (ACD) call and some breakout calls, usually available within a few hours of the call.
tl;dr:
The Facial upgrade provided in addition to the ability to adjust blob parameters independently of fork cycles. The next upgrade, Glamsterdamis fully covered and progress is being made while key features of the next upgrade, Hegotaare now being proposed, with a deadline for proposals of February 4.
Sight
Since the last Checkpoint, the Fusaka upgrade has gone live, bringing scale in the form of Data availability sampling to Ethereum.
Both @ethereum and Vitalik took to Twitter explain PeerDASWhy Secure scaling is importantAnd how these improvements fit in the grand scheme of things.
BPO forks
Blob Parameter Only forks are now a reality – Ethereum can now and has increased the number of blobs without having to wait an entire fork cycle, and scales for L2 use as needed. The first two BPO forks were successfully stress-tested and baked into Fusaka, with the first going live a few days after Fusaka and the second in early 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 talked about what it would take to be ready for a third BPO fork, but agreed that it is not a priority until blob usage increases to utilize the existing increments.
Glamsterdam
Progress on Glamsterdam’s two headliners, committed Proposer Builder Separation (ePBS) and Block-level Access Lists (BALs), continues apace, but ePBS is a much more complex change than BALs, so while the latter has already developersit will be a bit longer before we see a devnet for ePBS.
Timeline
As with any fork, headliners will need to be brought to a stable place on devnets before adding variables in the form of more EIPs. Now that developers have finally reduced the list of proposed non-headlining features from 50 to a more manageable set of 17 necessary and impactful features, they will 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 slowing of the overall fork, they can opt to remove them from the “Considered” set. The complete list of Considered features are:
- EIP-2780: Reduce intrinsic transaction gas
- EIP-7688: Forward-compatible consensus data structures
- EIP-7708: ETH transfers broadcast a log
- EIP-7778: Block gas accounting without refund
- EIP-7843: SLOTNUM opcode
- EIP-7904: General repricing
- EIP-7954: Increase the maximum contract size
- EIP-7976: Increase Calldata floor costs
- EIP-7981: Increase access list cost
- EIP-7997: Deterministic factory pre-deploy
- EIP-8024: Backwards compatible SWAPN, DUPN, EXCHANGE
- EIP-8037: Increase in gas costs by the state
- EIP-8038: Increase in gas costs for state access
- EIP-8045: Exclude sliced validators from proposals
- EIP-8061: Increase exit and consolidation turnover
- EIP-8070: Scarce Blobpool
- EIP-8080: Allow outputs to use the consolidation queue
Expect a better timeline once we have a stable first ePBS devnet, and even more clarity once every EIP has been tested in a devnet.
Hegotha
A quick note about the name change: the original H-star name, Heka, was then replaced by Heze noted one community developer that “Heka” is not listed in the International Astronomers Union catalog, as were all previously chosen star names. The fork name is Heze + Bogotá: Hegotá.
FOCILL
Fork-choice Inclusion Lists (FOCIL), a censorship resistance mechanism, was moved from Glamsterdam to reduce the scope of the fork. Given strong support among core developers and the general Ethereum community, it was moved to Considered status for Hegotá and will be evaluated along with other headliner proposals – as of this post, there is only one competing proposal.
Check out an overview of FOCIL and its readiness for Hegotá here.
Timeline
Anyone can propose a headliner for Hegotá before the February 4 deadline via the template on the Ethereum Magicians forum.
The proposals will then be presented by the proponent through ACD calls and community feedback will be sought. The goal is to decide on Hegota’s headliner before February 26. After that decision, smaller (non-headlining) features can be proposed. A deadline will be given for these proposals, so make sure you keep Checkpoint informed. As with the headliner proposals, anyone can propose a non-headliner; they just have to want it see it through.
January 8 – February 4: Headliner proposals [ NOW ]
February 5 – February 26: Headliner discussion & conclusion
30 days after headliner’s decision, deadline to be determined: EIP proposals that are not headliners
Process
If you’ve ever wondered how someone gets a feature into Ethereum, there’s a 2026 guide to forking a feature here. A proposed feature for Ethereum, called an Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP), is first specified using the very first EIP as a guide: EIP-1then presented during a designated window and guided by a technical point of contact throughout the process.
Getting through the 50 proposed non-headliner features for Glamsterdam was an absolute beast and everyone felt it. This fork with so many proposals could be a result of a larger number of high-context participants or a result of the process being a little clearer – developers now know when And How to present their characteristics. Because customer and test teams are the ones actually doing the work to implement these changes, they should familiarize themselves with proposals and recommendations on the most urgent and impactful changes. Sifting through 50 specifications to make informed recommendations is a lot of homework!
I do expect to see more proposals for Hegotá headliners competing 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 makes it all somewhat complicated to combine with another complex feature change. There’s been some talk 6 second slots but it is unclear whether it will be proposed for Hegotá or will wait for I-star. Whatever key feature you prefer, I suggest you actively express your support for it during the February discussion period.
Relevant ACD calls:
[ November 14th – January 19th ]
ACDT: 66, 65, 64, 63, 62
AC/DC: 172, 171, 170
ACDE: 228, 227, 226, 225
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