Ethereum sets December 2029 deadline for quantum-resistant protocol

The Ethereum Foundation fixed December 2029 as a non-negotiable deadline for making Ethereum's Layer 1 quantum-resistant across execution, consensus, and data layers, according to The Defiant. The deadline will be treated as non-negotiable at least until a reassessment with outside experts in January 2027. The Foundation is planning for the possible arrival of cryptographically capable quantum computers as early as 2030, though most estimates place such arrival later and some suggest it may never occur. To meet the deadline, Ethereum will need to develop several forks in parallel. Reaching full post-quantum readiness five forks after Glamsterdam would require an average cadence of 7.2 months per fork, according to The Defiant. A fallback milestone two forks after Hegetí could be reached on a 12-month cadence, but would keep Ethereum running through Q-day with reduced guarantees rather than provide the full design. The quantum target is being used to narrow the scope of Hegetí, the upgrade planned after Glamsterdam. The Ethereum Foundation's Protocol cluster graded all 62 Ethereum Improvement Proposals submitted for Hegetí. Only two EIPs received the "must ship" designation: EIP-7805 (FOCIL) and EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions). FOCIL would let multiple validators require eligible transactions to appear in a block, reducing users' dependence on centralized block builders for inclusion. Frame Transactions would make account validation, execution, and gas payment programmable at the protocol level, providing a route to new signature schemes without a separate hard fork for each scheme. The Foundation identifies these as Hegetí's consensus- and execution-layer headliners and says they must ship together safely because their interaction creates the fork's main engineering and testing burden, per The Defiant. EIP-8365, another A-tier item, would begin retiring withdrawal credentials tied to cryptography vulnerable to quantum attacks. Quick Slots, which would shorten Ethereum's slot time, received a B grade and can still be considered individually under the B-tier rule after stable S- and A-tier devnets if time remains, but would need a complete specification, prototype, assessment of downstream effects, and confirmation it will not complicate the planned consensus redesign to reach A-tier. Hash-Chain RANDAO, a proposed consensus-hardening change, was kept at B because the cluster wants to avoid redesigning one cryptographic component before the complete post-quantum consensus design exists. Several proposals were declined for Hegetí. The controversial EIP to reduce validator rewards was rejected. Several validator-facing proposals were also declined, including custom sweep thresholds, withdrawal-credential preregistration, and a beacon-block reporting field. A tapered issuance burn and a mandatory burn of execution rewards were declined because the cluster said issuance and reward policy belong in a broader ecosystem process, per The Defiant. The Foundation is considering swapping the ordering of later forks: bringing post-quantum attestations forward to K* and moving mandatory execution proofs back to L*, which would accelerate the largest remaining piece of post-quantum consensus work. The ordering of later forks will be finalized only after the research matures and client capacity is better understood. Roughly 60 researchers and engineers across the Foundation's nine teams contributed 397 grades before contested proposals were discussed.