Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has outlined a new technical direction for the network under a “Lean Ethereum” strawmap, featuring quantum resistance, scalability, and privacy as top priorities. In a post on X over the weekend, Buterin described the planned upgrades as a transformation comparable in scale to the Merge in September 2022, which ended energy-intensive mining.
Timeline and Key Changes
The upgrades are expected to roll out over the next three to four years, touching nearly every layer of Ethereum. Buterin said quantum safety has “shifted up a LOT in priority,” and finalizing a quantum-safe solution for blobs is “urgent.” Privacy, he added, is now a “first class goal.” The strawmap timeline extends from 2026 to 2029.
The roadmap shift comes amid significant changes at the Ethereum Foundation. Last month, the foundation laid off roughly 20% of its staff to reduce its budget by 40% and become leaner. Several executives have also departed recently, including Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak, along with protocol contributors Tim Beiko and Barnabé Monnot, who left in May.
Technical and Community Reactions
Buterin is pushing for development of a new virtual machine, such as leanISA or RISC-V, to support programmable privacy and better scalability. However, questions remain over the proposed timeline.
Dankrad Feist, a researcher behind the payments-focused layer-1 Tempo blockchain, praised the plan but argued the three-to-four-year timeline is too slow. He suggested that AI could help developers ship the upgrades within a year. Crypto analyst Ignas Fiodorovas also supported the plan but expressed doubt about the Ethereum Foundation’s ability to meet the deadlines, citing a history of missed targets. Fiodorovas noted that improved tokenomics for Ether (ETH) was missing from the roadmap, as ETH prices continue to slide amid a broader market downturn.
