eip-8141

Ethereum Foundation researcher ladislaus.eth posted on social media that Ethereum core developers plan to decide on March 26 whether to include EIP-8141 (Frame Transactions) in the Hegota upgrade.EIP-8141 decouples accounts from fixed signature schemes, providing a native migration path for post-quantum secure (PQ-secure) signature schemes. If post-quantum security is only implemented at the consensus layer (leanCL) while user transactions at the execution layer still rely on quantum-vulnerable ECDSA, it will constitute an incomplete migration.

Ethereum Foundation researcher ladislaus.eth disclosed that the Ethereum core developer meeting (AllCoreDevs) plans to make a decision this Thursday on whether to include EIP-8141 in the Hegota upgrade.The core of EIP-8141 is to decouple accounts from fixed signature schemes, providing a native path for migration to post-quantum secure signature schemes. ladislaus.eth pointed out that if the consensus layer (leanCL) already possesses post-quantum security, but user transactions on the execution layer still rely on ECDSA signatures that have quantum vulnerabilities, then the overall migration is not complete; both layers need to have post-quantum readiness.In addition, EIP-8141 will also support account abstraction as a native feature of the protocol and support programmable Gas payments (including payments with ERC-20 tokens and transaction sponsorship). Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin added that EIP-8141 will also provide better native support for privacy protocols and draw a comparison with the general programmability of the EVM—this proposal will introduce programmability into the verification phase, which previously only hardcoded ECDSA.

Vitalik posted on the X platform stating that Ethereum has been discussing account abstraction (AA) since early 2016. Now, EIP-8141 serves as a comprehensive proposal aimed at addressing all remaining issues related to AA. The core concept of this proposal is "frame transactions," where a transaction contains N calls that can read each other's call data and can authorize the sender and gas payer.This mechanism supports various use cases: ordinary account transactions (such as multi-signature, variable keys, quantum-resistant signature schemes) are completed through validating frames and executing frames; when paying gas fees with non-ETH tokens, it can be achieved through the main contract without any intermediaries.In terms of privacy protocols, ZK-SNARK verification or the addition of two-dimensional randomness can be implemented through payment contracts. Regarding security, on-chain transactions are only valid when the validating frame returns an ACCEPT with a gas payment flag, while the memory pool layer will initially adopt conservative rules, gradually expanding later.EIP-8141 is highly complementary to FOCIL, with FOCIL ensuring quick transaction inclusion and AA ensuring that complex operations can be executed as first-class transactions directly. The proposal is also discussing EOA compatibility, which is theoretically feasible. After more than a decade of research, these technologies are expected to be implemented within a year through the Hegota fork.

According to CoinDesk, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has released a long-term roadmap aimed at addressing the potential threats to network security posed by future quantum computing through changes in signature and data schemes.The roadmap indicates that Ethereum faces risks of being compromised by quantum computing in consensus validator signatures (currently BLS), data availability schemes (which rely on KZG commitments), daily wallet transaction signatures, and certain zero-knowledge proofs. Buterin suggests that validators switch to hash signatures that are more resistant to quantum attacks, and centers around proposal EIP-8141 to pave the way for the transition of account signature algorithms and "Validation Frames," thereby supporting quantum-safe signatures and proofs while reducing on-chain verification costs.

Vitalik Buterin posted on the X platform, stating that there is an important synergy between the FOCIL mechanism and the account abstraction proposal Ethereum's EIP-8141 (based on 7701). EIP-8141 elevates smart accounts (including multi-signature, quantum-resistant signatures, key changes, Gas sponsorship, etc.) to "first-class citizens," meaning that operations from these accounts can be directly packaged as on-chain transactions without additional encapsulation.At the same time, privacy protocols can achieve a multi-tenant account model through the paymaster or 2D nonce mechanism, thereby gaining the same level of native support. FOCIL provides a censorship-resistant fast transaction inclusion mechanism. With the combination of both, various transactions, including smart wallet transactions, Gas sponsorship transactions, and privacy protocol transactions, can be included in blocks by one of the 17 roles (proposers or inclusions) randomly selected for each time slot.Vitalik stated that this design can ensure that transactions are almost guaranteed to be completed on-chain within 1-2 time slots in adversarial environments. In the current version, each FOCIL volume is approximately 8kB, which is relatively small, but there is a path for future expansion that could support most transactions in a block entering through the FOCIL channel. This architecture is similar in characteristics to the multi-parallel proposer (MCP) design, but differs in that FOCIL does not control the "last look" related to MEV, which is still allocated through the ePBS auction mechanism.Vitalik emphasized that even if 100% of block time slots are monopolized by adversarial parties through the proposer-builder separation (PBS) mechanism, refusing to connect to the public mempool or discriminating against specific applications, FOCIL can still ensure that all transactions receive fast inclusion. Although this design does not eliminate the centralization risk of the proposer role, it significantly weakens its power. Under the EIP-8141 framework, transactions from smart wallets or privacy protocols can be directly received by FOCIL inclusions through the public mempool without additional intermediaries or encapsulation processes.Vitalik concluded that Ethereum is accelerating the advancement of core architecture upgrades.