Catenaa, Thursday, March 05, 2026- Ethereum Foundation researcher Vitalik Buterin outlined new proposals to curb centralization in Ethereum’s block building system, ahead of a major network upgrade expected in early 2026.

In a series of posts published Monday, Buterin detailed plans tied to the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade, which will introduce enshrined Proposer-Builder Separation, or ePBS.

The mechanism allows validators to outsource block construction to a permissionless market of specialized builders, aiming to reduce staking concentration.

Buterin warned that while ePBS limits validator dominance, it could shift influence toward a small group of sophisticated block builders.

Those actors often optimize transaction ordering to extract maximum value, potentially drawing stakers toward affiliated pools.

To counter that risk, developers plan to deploy Forward Obligatory Commitment to Inclusion Lists, known as FOCIL.

The feature would require randomly selected attesters to ensure transactions are included in blocks, even if builders attempt censorship.

Buterin also proposed expanding the mechanism into “Big FOCIL,” allowing inclusion lists to cover all transactions in a block.

That change could reduce the builder role to processing high-value transactions and computing state changes.

He further suggested encrypting Ethereum’s mempool to prevent exploitative trading tactics such as frontrunning and sandwich attacks.

Encryption would keep transactions hidden until confirmation, limiting opportunities for manipulation.

The proposals arrive as Ethereum developers debate broader technical changes, including potential shifts to new virtual machine architectures, while seeking to balance efficiency with decentralization.