On Wednesday, researchers at the Ethereum Foundation released a technical draft outlining an ambitious roadmap for Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain with an over $245 billion market cap, that envisions seven major network upgrades by the end of the decade.
The document targets reductions in slot times and finality periods, while introducing features such as quantum-resistant cryptography and native privacy.
EF Publishes Seven-Fork Roadmap Aimed At Overhauling Ethereum Network
Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake shared the details of the so-called ‘strawmap’ on X, blending ‘strawman’ and ‘roadmap.’ The draft proposes a tentative schedule featuring one network fork roughly every six months through 2029.
The roadmap is structured around five core technical priorities, which the team refers to as its guiding ‘north stars.’
The objectives span several ambitious goals, including a faster Layer 1 designed to achieve transaction finality within seconds, alongside a substantial boost in throughput targeting roughly 10,000 transactions per second — described as ‘gigagas’ scale. The roadmap also envisions Layer 2 networks scaling to ‘teragas’ levels, potentially supporting around 10 million TPS. Additional priorities include integrating post-quantum cryptography and introducing native privacy features, such as shielded ETH transfers.
Layer 1 (L1) denotes Ethereum’s base layer — the core blockchain itself. Layer 2 (L2) solutions, including Arbitrum and Optimism, operate atop Ethereum, facilitating lower-cost transaction processing before ultimately settling activity back on L1. Meanwhile, terms like ‘gigagas’ and ‘teragas’ refer to throughput benchmarks expressed in gas, Ethereum’s standard measure of computational effort.
The roadmap further emphasizes the development of a ‘Post-Quantum L1,’ built on hash-based cryptography, alongside a ‘Private L1’ designed to enable shielded ETH transfers and deliver what Drake described as first-class privacy at the base-layer level.
He indicated that the proposed sequence of seven forks is expected to conclude by 2029, while noting that advances such as AI-assisted development or formal verification techniques could potentially speed up the schedule.
Finality From Minutes To Seconds
In a late Wednesday post on X, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin called the strawmap a ‘very important document,’ offering in-depth remarks on its proposed technical objectives.
Buterin stated that he anticipates Ethereum’s slot time — the regular interval for block production — will progressively decline from the current 12 seconds, potentially moving through stages of 8, 6, 4, 3, and potentially down to 2 seconds. He added that the later reductions would require substantial additional research.
The Ethereum wunderkind also discussed a corresponding decrease in finality time — the point at which blocks become irreversible — projecting a reduction from the current 16 minutes to a range of roughly 6 to 16 seconds. He described a potential pathway in which finality would first fall to 10 minutes and 40 seconds with 8-second slots, then to 6 minutes and 24 seconds under a one-epoch finality model. From there, it could compress further to 1 minute and 12 seconds, followed by 48 seconds, 16 seconds, and eventually just 8 seconds under more aggressive configurations.
Buterin described the broader architectural shift as a ‘ship of Theseus’-style transformation, in which elements of Ethereum’s consensus mechanism are gradually replaced piece by piece. This approach, he explained, allows the system to evolve into something fundamentally new while avoiding any single upgrade that would prove overly disruptive.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/ethereum-foundation-unveils-bold-new-strawmap-targeting-transaction-finality-in-seconds-by-2029/
