Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has named quantum resistance, scalability and privateness as three of Ethereum’s high priorities below a brand new “Lean Ethereum” strawmap, which lays out the community’s technical route for the rest of the last decade.
In a submit to X on Saturday, Buterin mentioned the gathering of upgrades will roll out over the subsequent three to 4 years, touching practically each layer of Ethereum in a change he in contrast in scale to the September 2022 Merge, which shifted the community away from energy-intensive mining.
“Quantum security has shifted up a LOT in precedence,” he mentioned, including that finalizing a quantum-safe answer for blobs has “turn into pressing.” Enhancing privateness is one other precedence, Buterin mentioned, stating that it has turn into a “first-class objective.”

The “Lean Ethereum” strawmap timeline from 2026 by way of to 2029. Supply: Strawmap.org
The change in roadmap comes amid a collection of adjustments on the Ethereum Basis, which laid off roughly 20% of its employees final month in a bid to turn into leaner and scale back its funds by 40%.
The leaner construction comes on high of a number of government departures in latest months, together with Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak, whereas protocol contributors Tim Beiko and Barnabé Monnot additionally left in Could.
Buterin can be pushing for the event of a brand new digital machine like leanISA or RISC-V to assist programmable privateness and higher scalability.
Questions stay over Buterin’s timeline
Dankrad Feist, a researcher behind the payments-focused layer-1 Tempo blockchain, praised the brand new plan however argued the 3-4 yr timeline is simply too sluggish, stating that AI may assist builders ship the upgrades inside a yr.
Associated: Ethereum Basis management exodus continues with director’s departure
Crypto analyst Ignas Fiodorovas was additionally in favor of the plan however solid doubt on the Ethereum Basis’s potential to ship the upgrades throughout the acknowledged timeline, citing the group’s historical past of lacking deadlines.
Fiodorovas mentioned the one key characteristic lacking from the roadmap was improved tokenomics for Ether (ETH), which has continued to slip in worth amid a broader market downturn.
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