Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has listed quantum resilience, scalability, and privacy as three of Ethereum’s top priorities under a new “Lean Ethereum” straw map that sets out the network’s technological direction for the rest of the decade.
In a post on X on Saturday, Buterin said the series of upgrades will be rolled out over the next three to four years and will impact nearly every layer of Ethereum, in a transformation comparable in scale to the September 2022 merge that moved the network away from energy-intensive mining.
“Quantum safety has become a much higher priority,” he said, adding that perfecting the Blob’s quantum-safe solution “has become more urgent.” Buterin said enhancing privacy was also a priority, making it a “first-class goal.”
“Lean Ethereum” strawmap timeline from 2026 to 2029. source: Strawmap.org
The roadmap change comes amid a series of changes at the Ethereum Foundation, which last month laid off about 20% of its staff in an effort to slim down and cut its budget by 40%.
The slimmer organization follows several executive departures in recent months, including Xiaowei Wang and Tomasz Stanczak, as well as protocol contributors Tim Beiko and Barnabé Monot, who also left their positions in May.
Buterin is also driving the development of new virtual machines such as leanISA and RISC-V to support programmable privacy and greater scalability.
Questions remain about Buterin’s timeline
Danclad Feist, a researcher at Layer 1 Tempo blockchain focused on payments, praised the new plan but argued that the three- to four-year timeline is too slow and said AI could help developers ship upgrades within a year.
Crypto analyst Ignas Fidlovas also agreed with the plan, but questioned the Ethereum Foundation’s ability to deliver upgrades within set deadlines, citing the foundation’s past failure to meet deadlines.
Fiodrovas said the only significant feature missing from the roadmap is improved tokenomics for Ether (ETH), whose price continues to fall amid a widespread market downturn.
