Ethlabs has proposed preparing Ethereum for attacks driven by quantum computers and AI in 2027. It said it will withdraw a plan for faster blocks from the Hegotá upgrade and redirect its resources toward security.
In a post to Ethereum Magicians on Nov. 11, the lab called its proposal “pqai27” and urged core developers to reconsider any upgrade feature outside the critical path to that goal, including features already scheduled.
Ethlabs is an independent nonprofit Ethereum research lab whose team includes Barnabé Monnot, co-author of Quick Slots. Its proposal is not an agreed network schedule: Hegotá’s published scope still lists Quick Slots as “Considered for Inclusion,”, while Frames and FOCIL are “Scheduled for Inclusion.”
Quick Slots, EIP-8198, would make Ethereum’s block-production intervals easier to change and initially shorten them from 12 seconds to 10 seconds. Ethlabs said it still supports faster slots and will pursue them in 2028 instead.
The delay would put off a change intended to reduce transaction waits and improve trading. In Ethlabs’ September survey, DefiLlama founder 0xngmi said faster slots would allow swap users to set tighter slippage limits because prices would change less between blocks.
A 2027 Safety Route, Not a Completed Migration
Ethlabs distinguishes “pqai-ready” from “pqai-scaled.”. Its 2027 readiness target means post-quantum consensus and a quantum-resistant route for every user’s account. The lab argues that if today’s cryptography breaks, the network could switch over and continue at reduced capacity. Running quantum-resistant transactions and data blobs at full capacity is a stretch goal for 2027.
By “post-AI,”, the lab means cryptography designed to withstand potential cryptanalytic breakthroughs, along with hardening the software clients that run Ethereum against AI-assisted bug discovery. These are proposed defenses, not evidence that AI has broken Ethereum’s cryptography.
The target is earlier than Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake’s December 2028 goal for the “full post-quantum and post-AI transition,”, previously reported by The Defiant. The Foundation’s post-quantum team offers a different benchmark: its page, last updated June 27, 2026, says L1 protocol upgrades could be completed by 2029, with the full execution-layer migration taking additional years.
To reach the target, Ethlabs would retain Frames, which allows account code to define transaction authorization and offers a route to post-quantum signatures. But it wants developers to reconsider the timing of FOCIL, a censorship-resistance feature that lets validator committees require transactions to be included, if it puts the 2027 goal at risk.
Ethlabs argues that without FOCIL, account changes could be shipped separately from the validator-consensus upgrade rather than waiting for it. Whether to adapt Ethereum’s existing Gasper consensus or switch directly to a new, decoupled design remains its biggest open technical question. Wallet support and migrations for users and validators would also require work beyond the hardfork schedule.
Developer Potuz, whose Nov. 9 analysis is cited by Ethlabs, argued that a credible commitment requires a public specification, engineers dedicated from client teams and a shared test network. “No one can promise today that Ethereum will ship a particular design on a particular date,”, he wrote.
Add A Comment
Comments are closed.