Recently, Vitalik said something that has become the center of discussion in the crypto community. He introduced a new concept called 'Sanchuary Technologies'—essentially open-source technologies that protect people from government pressure, corporate restrictions, or other external interventions.

Imagine if all the main developers of Ethereum suddenly disappeared tomorrow—would the network continue to operate normally? This is the 'Walkaway Test' that Vitalik repeatedly emphasizes. And this is where the real problem arises. Over the past few years, Ethereum's block production process has become increasingly specialized. Power has concentrated in the hands of a few powerful builders, increasing the potential for transaction censorship.

That’s why the FOCIL (Fork-Choice) mandatory inclusion list has become so important. Its mechanism is simple— a committee is elected from the validator group that creates a list of valid transactions present in the mempool. The proposer of the next slot is obliged to include these transactions. This means builders can no longer arbitrarily exclude valid transactions. In the Hegotá upgrade—coming in Q2 2026—FOCIL has been incorporated as the main proposal.

But that’s only half the story. There are dangers even before transactions are packed into blocks. When your transaction appears in the public mempool, MEV searchers can front-run or sandwich attack it, especially with DeFi transactions. This is where encrypted mempool plays a role.

Proposals like LUCID and EIP-8105 are trying to solve this problem. The idea is that when you send a transaction, its contents remain encrypted until it is packed into a block. This way, searchers cannot see your intentions, making sandwich attacks impossible. The public mempool then becomes secure and useful again.

Researchers have called this the 'Holy Trinity of Censorship Resistance'—a combination of ePBS, FOCIL, and encrypted mempool providing organized security across the entire transaction supply chain.

Looking at the bigger picture, this is not just a technical upgrade. It signals that Ethereum is restoring censorship resistance at the core of its protocol. When countless users can live freely, work, communicate, manage risks, and deposit assets on this digital safe island—without concerns of review or bans by any centralized entity—Ethereum will truly pass the Walkaway Test.

This is the real meaning of Sanchuary Technologies. The value of blockchain has perhaps never been just about holding assets on chain or speeding up transactions. Its true power lies in providing digital freedom—a place where you can live your digital life without permission, pressure, or fear.