{"id":93661,"date":"2026-01-28T16:31:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T13:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/?p=93661"},"modified":"2026-01-28T16:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T13:35:14","slug":"ethereum-foundation-unveils-anti-censorship-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/ethereum-foundation-unveils-anti-censorship-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Ethereum Foundation Unveils Anti-Censorship Strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ethereum Foundation researcher Thomas Thierry has <a href=\"https:\/\/ethereum-magicians.org\/t\/hegota-headliner-proposal-focil-eip-7805\/27604\">proposed<\/a> making the FOCIL mechanism (<span data-descr=\"Ethereum Improvement Proposals \u2014 proposals for improving Ethereum\" class=\"old_tooltip\">EIP<\/span>-7805) a key component of the Hegota upgrade. This update aims to bolster the network&#8217;s resilience against censorship.<\/p>\n<p>Thierry is part of the Robust Incentives Group. He notes that currently, the blockchain lacks protocol-level guarantees against transaction filtering.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">How It Works<\/h2>\n<p>FOCIL (Fork Choice-enforced Inclusion Lists) allows validators to forcibly include operations in the distributed ledger. This limits the power of centralised block &#8220;builders&#8221; and relays, which can delay or ignore user operations.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal addresses the centralisation issue in the builder market caused by the extraction of <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-mev-in-ethereum\">MEV<\/a>. Researchers believe that censorship resistance should be ensured technically, rather than relying on the integrity of market participants.<\/p>\n<p>Without FOCIL, the protocol remains vulnerable to mass blockages. Thierry noted that while dominant builders rarely censor transactions now, the situation could change instantly.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><em>\u201cEthereum needs to be designed for decades of resilience. We must prevent censorship proactively, not reactively,\u201d the developer emphasised.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Implementation Challenges<\/h2>\n<p>Implementing the mechanism will require additional technical solutions. The current version of FOCIL does not support transactions with <span data-descr=\"large binary data arrays\" class=\"old_tooltip\">BLOB<\/span> and private MEV transfers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Previously, the proposal was considered for the <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/a-quiet-evolution-why-whales-are-buying-ethereum-ahead-of-glamsterdam-and-hegota\">Glamsterdam<\/a> hard fork but was postponed. The Hegota update is scheduled in the roadmap for 2026.<\/p>\n<p>In January, amid low fees, activity on the Ethereum mainnet <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/ethereum-activity-surpasses-l2-networks-following-fusaka-update\">surpassed<\/a> that of <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/what-is-a-layer%e2%80%912-solution-in-blockchain\">layer-two solutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas Thierry from EF proposed making the FOCIL mechanism a key element of the Hegota upgrade. The update aims to enhance the network&#8217;s resilience against censorship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93662,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"1","news_style_id":"1","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"Thomas Thierry proposed FOCIL as key to Hegota upgrade, enhancing anti-censorship resilience.","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39,46,1134],"class_list":["post-93661","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-censorship","tag-ethereum","tag-technical-updates"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"180","promo_type":"1","layout_type":"1","short_excerpt":"Thomas Thierry proposed FOCIL as key to Hegota upgrade, enhancing anti-censorship resilience.","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93661"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93663,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93661\/revisions\/93663"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}