Nikolas Sargeant
TL;DR
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Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum’s latest roadmap places greater emphasis on privacy, quantum resistance and protocol simplification.
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New priorities include Privacy Pools, wormholes, FOCIL, native rollups and AI-assisted formal verification.
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Ethereum could eventually replace or significantly revise core technologies such as the Ethereum Virtual Machine.
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The Ethereum Foundation’s “Strawmap” is a living reference guide rather than a fixed upgrade schedule.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has highlighted a significant shift in the network’s development priorities, with privacy, quantum security and protocol simplification emerging as central areas of focus.
On Monday, Buterin compared Ethereum’s previous roadmap with the Ethereum Foundation’s latest “Strawmap,” a reference guide covering potential protocol upgrades through 2029. The document was most recently updated on August 4.
The comparison showed that several technologies now considered essential to Ethereum’s future were absent from the network’s 2023 roadmap.
That earlier plan organized Ethereum’s development into a series of multi-year phases known as The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge and The Splurge.
“What’s most striking, however, is that some completely new things are in the strawmap that are NOT in this diagram, because they were not in the 2023 roadmap at all,” Buterin said on X.
Privacy Becomes a Core Ethereum Requirement
Strong privacy is one of the most notable additions to Ethereum’s evolving roadmap.
The network is exploring mechanisms designed to protect users’ balances and transaction activity. These include Privacy Pools and “wormholes,” which could allow people to transfer assets without publicly exposing their complete transaction histories.
Ethereum developers are also working on Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists, commonly known as FOCIL. The feature is expected to be a major component of the planned Hegota upgrade and is intended to strengthen Ethereum’s resistance to transaction censorship.
The increased emphasis on privacy reflects the Ethereum Foundation’s broader goal of making user protection a default protocol property rather than an optional feature.
Ethereum Prepares for Quantum Computing Threats
Quantum resistance has also moved higher on Ethereum’s list of priorities. Future quantum computers could threaten some of the cryptographic systems currently used to secure blockchain networks.
Ethereum’s developers are therefore considering protocol changes that would protect accounts and transactions from potential quantum attacks.
Buterin paired this objective with the broader “Lean Ethereum” initiative, a collection of proposed upgrades that could eventually replace or substantially revise nearly every major component of the protocol.
He previously described Lean Ethereum as the network’s “third major iteration,” with a transformation potentially comparable in scope to The Merge.
One of the most significant long-term proposals involves replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine, the execution environment responsible for running Ethereum applications and smart contracts.
Alternative computing architectures, including RISC-V and leanISA, are being considered as possible successors. These systems could help make Ethereum simpler, more efficient and easier to verify.
Other Ethereum Virtual Machine improvements previously included in the roadmap have been scaled back or replaced as developers pursue approaches considered more effective.
“Ethereum will be quantum-safe. Ethereum will put users’ privacy first. Ethereum will be secure. Ethereum will be censorship-resistant. Ethereum will be highly performant and scalable while satisfying the above. And Ethereum will be Lean,” Buterin said.
Advances in zero-knowledge technology have also changed what developers believe is possible for Ethereum.
Buterin noted that SNARKs—a type of zero-knowledge cryptographic proof—were not mature enough in 2023 to support more ambitious scaling initiatives. Their development has since opened the door to proposals such as native rollups, which could bring rollup functionality more directly into Ethereum’s base protocol.
The new roadmap also envisions using modern artificial intelligence to assist with formal verification. This process uses mathematical methods to confirm that protocol code behaves as intended, potentially helping developers identify security flaws before upgrades are deployed.
Other concepts that were absent from the 2023 roadmap include blob and gas futures, which could help users and applications manage future network costs.
Ethereum Foundation Restructures Around Core Principles
The Strawmap remains a living document that can be revised as research advances. It is intended as a reference guide rather than a fixed upgrade schedule.
That flexibility is particularly important given previous criticism of the Ethereum Foundation over delayed upgrades and the allocation of development resources.
In June, the foundation reduced its workforce by 20% and reorganized its operations into five core clusters. The groups are aligned with its CROPS mandate, which prioritizes censorship resistance, open-source development, privacy and security.
New organizations have also emerged to support Ethereum’s development. EthLabs was established as a nonprofit contributing research and development alongside the Ethereum Foundation, while EthSystems was spun out of the foundation’s former Institutional Privacy Task Force to develop privacy technology for institutional users.
Together, these changes indicate that Ethereum’s future development will increasingly revolve around protecting users, resisting censorship, preparing for quantum threats, and simplifying the protocol without compromising scalability.
