What is the FOCIL Framework? A Solution to Strengthen Ethereum’s Neutrality

Ethereum has been grappling with issues surrounding transaction censorship, and co-founder Vitalik Buterin may have discovered a potential remedy: the FOCIL framework. So, what exactly is the FOCIL framework, and how does it address one of Ethereum’s primary challenges?

In a broad sense, the risks of censorship on Ethereum arise from validators and MEV-boost relays that selectively omit transactions.

Certain relays, like Flashbots, previously opted to disregard transactions from ETH addresses that were sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

Indeed, at its highest point, more than 56% of Ethereum’s blocks adhered to OFAC standards.

(All-Time Percentage of OFAC Compliant Transactions)

On August 22, 2025, Buterin took to post on X to share his vision of upholding blockchain neutrality through the Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion (FOCIL) framework.

I believe that the neutrality / “dumb pipe” characteristic of the L1 is significant enough that we should create multiple defenses to safeguard it:

1. Ensure that the public mempool remains robust and that it stays feasible to construct blocks “naively”, simply by taking txs from the…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 22, 2025

In his announcement, he detailed Ethereum’s purpose as a neutral Layer-1 protocol that is meant to process every valid transaction impartially. His remarks were in response to Ameen Soleimani’s apprehensions regarding the legal vulnerabilities that US-based Ethereum validators encounter.

“I consider the neutrality/dumb pipe characteristic of the L1 to be crucial enough that we should have several defenses to uphold it,” he stated.

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What Key Strategies Are Proposed to Protect Ethereum’s Neutrality?

Buterin elaborated on the approaches he believes are vital to sustaining Ethereum’s neutral position, starting with reinforcing the public mempool and ensuring it continues to serve as a dependable source for block creation without any centralized filtering.

Moreover, he highlighted the necessity of developing other decentralized blockchain technologies, such as constructing innovative systems like the FOCIL framework or decentralized builder networks that lessen dependency on centralized block builders and relays.

Buterin suggested implementing “extra inclusion channels” to enhance safety against censorship, especially in scenarios where staking is concentrated among few major validators.

He pointed out that these channels would ensure the processing of valid transactions, even if influential validators try to exclude them.

Buterin described FOCIL as a mechanism to increase the number of block proposers per slot from one to seventeen.

Only one of these seventeen block proposers will have the final authority and determine the order of transactions, while the remaining sixteen will serve as attestors. Additionally, any transaction proposed by any of the seventeen must be included in the ultimate block, guaranteeing that non-privileged proposers are assigned a significantly lesser weight.

He explained, “They do not need to compute the state root; they just have to execute the validation part of any transaction. They could even be stateless, which would make it feasible for any attester to also act as one of these auxiliary proposers, even at much higher gas limits.”

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Why Do Experts Argue That the FOCIL Framework Could Adversely Affect US Validators?

While Buterin’s FOCIL proposal seeks to address the oligopoly among Ethereum block builders, it has raised legal concerns.

He clarified that FOCIL allocates transaction inclusion rights among seventeen proposers per slot, ensuring that even if two builders dominate 99% of block production, they cannot stifle valid transactions.

However, Soleimani disagrees and contends that this mechanism puts US-based validators at considerable risk.

The argument against FOCIL (which I learned about recently):

ETH developers, I appreciate you. Your intentions are commendable. However, when you create an EIP to tackle the issue of “filtering out transactions with sanctioned addresses” and your solution is “to permit validators to enforce constraints on builders by… pic.twitter.com/O2FfaGO5L9

— Ameen Soleimani (@ameensol) August 22, 2025

He argued that mandating validators to include transactions associated with sanctioned addresses, like those linked to Tornado Cash, could contravene US sanctions laws, which carry penalties of up to 20 years.

At present, validators can filter sanctioned transactions while still being involved in block production.

Soleimani warned that FOCIL’s implementation might render it legally untenable for US validators, as well as attestors and core system developers, to work without risking prosecution.

Buterin, on the other hand, remains resolute in his conviction that ETH must continue to be a neutral network.

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The post What is the FOCIL Framework? Solution To Reinforce Ethereum’s Impartiality appeared first on 99Bitcoins.