Key facts
- Ethlabs said it will withdraw its Quick Slots proposal from the planned Hegotá upgrade and redirect resources to pqai27.
- Quick Slots, or EIP-8198, would initially cut Ethereum's slot time from 12 seconds to 10 seconds.
- Ethlabs said it will still pursue faster slots in 2028.
- Ethlabs said FOCIL, a censorship-resistance feature, should proceed for Hegotá only if it does not jeopardize quantum readiness.
- Ethlabs called Frame Transactions, which would enable more flexible account authentication, central to the proposed transition.
- The Ethereum Foundation's published roadmap still targets December 2029 for quantum resistance, and core developers have not approved the proposal.
Ethereum research group Ethlabs said on November 12, 2026, that it will withdraw its proposal to speed up the network's block production from the planned Hegotá upgrade, and urged core developers to prepare Ethereum for quantum attacks by 2027.
The group outlined a proposed roadmap it calls pqai27, aimed at protecting Ethereum against threats from quantum computing and increasingly capable artificial intelligence. It said unrelated upgrades should be reconsidered.
Ethlabs had previously backed Ethereum Improvement Proposal 8198, known as Quick Slots, which would initially cut Ethereum's slot time from 12 seconds to 10 seconds. The group said it would redirect resources to pqai27 but will still pursue faster slots in 2028.
For Hegotá, Ethlabs said FOCIL, a planned censorship-resistance feature, should proceed only if it does not jeopardize quantum readiness. It called Frame Transactions, which would enable more flexible account authentication, central to the proposed transition. It said Glamsterdam, the upgrade before Hegotá, should proceed as planned.
Ethereum core developers have not approved the proposal. The Ethereum Foundation's published roadmap still targets December 2029 for quantum resistance. At Devcon, researcher Justin Drake said he hopes to complete the transition in 2028.