Ethereum Institutional has signaled support for Ethlabs' motion to reduce block times, part of a broader push toward a faster Ethereum amid increasing competition from other networks.

“Make Ethereum faster,” the non-profit organization wrote in a Friday X post, arguing that shorter block times are needed as “more institutional activity moves onchain.”

On Thursday, Ethlabs published an article quoting 20 decentralized finance (DeFi) founders who expressed broad support for EIP-8198, also known as “Quick Slots,” a proposal that seeks to initially reduce Ethereum's block times to 10 seconds from the current 12 seconds. An Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) is the network's standard format for proposing protocol changes, and block time — the interval at which the chain adds new blocks — sets the pace at which transactions can be included.

Comparable initiatives are underway on other networks. On Monday, the majority of Zcash token holders backed cutting the network's target block time to 25 seconds, down from 75 seconds. In August, Solana reduced its slot time from 400 milliseconds to 350ms. In June, the Solana Foundation shared plans to cut slot times from 400ms to 200ms, arguing the change would improve latency and accelerate confirmations on the network.

EIP-8198 was authored in March and was proposed for inclusion in the Hegotá upgrade at the Ethereum core developers meeting on Aug. 6. Ethlabs said it is merging the proposal's specifications into the main codebase and investigating potential downstream dependencies to help it “meaningfully enter Hegotá's scope.” Its place in the upgrade is not yet final, however: the proposal must still secure a spot in Hegotá's scope through the core developer process.

Ethereum developers could begin implementing Hegotá in late 2026, following Glamsterdam — arguably one of the most consequential upgrades of the year, designed to improve scalability and harden the main.

Related: Dragonfly's Qureshi calls for end to Zcash dev fund after 2028