Ethereum researcher Thomas Thiery, also known as soispoke, has proposed the inclusion of FOCIL as a core anti-censorship feature in the upcoming Hegota upgrade. According to BlockBeats, Hegota is Ethereum's second major upgrade scheduled for the latter half of 2026. FOCIL is a protocol layer mechanism that modifies Ethereum's fork choice rules, enforcing the inclusion of any valid transaction into on-chain blocks within a limited timeframe. This mechanism allows multiple validators to collectively enforce transaction inclusion, rather than relying on a single block builder.
The primary aim of this proposal is to reduce Ethereum's dependency on centralized validators, thereby mitigating potential risks of large-scale transaction censorship in the future. This enhancement is intended to bolster Ethereum's core value as a neutral and censorship-resistant blockchain. Thiery emphasized that without FOCIL, the protocol could be vulnerable to significant censorship events. He advocates for Ethereum to proactively design long-term resilience instead of passively responding to sudden censorship challenges.
