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Ethlabs withdraws quick slots from Hegotá, pushes post-quantum target to 2027

Ethlabs posted pqai27 on Ethereum Magicians Nov 11, pulling faster slot times and asking FOCIL be rescheduled. Frames (EIP-8141) and PQ Gasper stay on the critical path.

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Ethlabs published an Ethereum Magicians post titled "An Ethlabs view on post-quantum and post-AI timelines: pqai27" on Nov 11, 2026, laying out what it wants moved into — and out of — the Hegotá hard fork. The headline change: Ethlabs withdraws its quick-slots proposal from Hegotá and asks developers to target a post-quantum, post-AI (pqai) Ethereum by 2027. CoinDesk covered the post on Nov 12.

What pqai27 asks for

The forum post splits the target into two stages:

  • pqai-ready (2027): post-quantum consensus, every user has a post-quantum account route, running at Glamsterdam capacity.
  • pqai-scaled (2027 stretch): full capacity with post-quantum transactions and blobs.

Ethlabs says the EF protocol team's internal quantum target had already moved from December 2029 (set in September) to 2028, and that pqai27 asks for another 12-month shave off that timeline.

Motivation given in the post:

  • The US government moved its own quantum-risk goal from 2035 to 2030.
  • Google is targeting post-quantum by 2029.
  • AI-driven cyber tools have already found and patched on the order of 1,000 Linux vulnerabilities, per the forum post, raising the baseline for automated exploit discovery against client code.

What's being dropped or delayed in Hegotá

  • Quick slots: withdrawn from Hegotá. Ethlabs now wants quicker slots in 2028, not this upgrade.
  • FOCIL (the current Hegotá CL headliner, meant to make censorship harder for block builders): Ethlabs asks it be scheduled only if pqai27 stays achievable, citing its slowing effect on pq-readiness and compatibility questions with EIP-8288 and the proposed PQ Gasper consensus.
  • Anything not on the pqai-readiness critical path should be reconsidered against the categories in EIP-7723 (PFI, CFI, SFI).

What's being accelerated or kept

  • Frames — EIP-8141 on the execution layer, paired with a post-quantum signature scheme (SPHINCS) and post-quantum account EIPs. Ethlabs flags that Frames can ship independently of the consensus-layer changes.
  • Post-quantum consensus on the CL — either the PQ Gasper path or a decoupled consensus. Which one is explicitly still an open question in the post.
  • Glamsterdam ships as planned; pqai27 is a Hegotá-and-after conversation.
  • EIP-8288 (signature aggregation) and EIP-8479 (post-quantum data availability) are listed as required for the pqai-scaled stretch target.

What this means for users

The ship-the-code vs ship-to-users gap is explicit in the post and in CoinDesk's coverage: even when the protocol supports post-quantum accounts, individual holders still have to rotate signing methods themselves. Wallet software has to carry the new schemes. Validators have to pre-register and migrate to post-quantum keys. Client teams get dedicated hardening time.

In practice:

  • The execution-layer path via Frames means account abstraction is the migration route: an account chooses which signing scheme approves its payments and can natively swap out an exposed key.
  • The CL path is still an open design choice — PQ Gasper vs decoupled consensus will affect validator economics and client complexity differently.
  • Bitcoin developers face a parallel problem; the forum post notes a draft Bitcoin proposal that would eventually restrict older signing methods.

What to watch

  1. The ACD call that picks up pqai27 — whether quick slots are formally removed from Hegotá's scope rather than just withdrawn in a forum post.
  2. The PQ Gasper vs decoupled-consensus decision, which Ethlabs flags as the single biggest open question on the CL path.
  3. FOCIL's fate — a decision to delay it in Hegotá is a material scope cut and will have its own debate.
  4. Wallet-vendor timelines for SPHINCS (or whichever post-quantum signature scheme Frames ships with) support.

Context

This is the second scope fight on Hegotá in a week: the fork was paused on Nov 6 over EIP-8037 invariants, and the EIP-8488 gas-repricing proposals drew rival counter-proposals on Nov 8. The common thread is scope pressure on Hegotá — Ethlabs is the first to argue the fix is to take things out, not debate them in.

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