The 2023 roadmap was organized around six loosely sketched pillars: The Merge, The Surge, The Scourge, The Verge, The Purge, and The Splurge. The Strawmap replaces that with five quantified, outcome-oriented north stars to be achieved by the end of the decade :
These north stars are not vague aspirations; the roadmap ties specific upgrade forks and cryptographic milestones to each one .
The Strawmap sketches approximately seven hard forks at a pace of roughly one every six months, from 2026 through 2029 :
| Upgrade | Target Period | Headliner Features |
|---|---|---|
| Fusaka | Shipped Dec 3, 2025 | PeerDAS, EOF, EIP-7702 |
| Glamsterdam | Q4 2026 | ePBS (EIP-7732), gas limit increases targeting a post-fork floor of 200 million, L1 scaling runway |
| Hegotá | 2027 | FOCIL for censorship resistance, binary state tree migration (EIP-7864) |
| (4 unnamed forks) | 2027–2029 | Quantum cryptography activation, native rollups, privacy primitives, potential EVM replacement |
The exact names and dates for forks beyond Hegotá remain fluid, with the Ethereum Foundation describing the Strawmap as a "sketch" rather than a fixed schedule .
Quantum resistance moved from a "watch and research" item in 2023 to an urgent top priority, with Buterin explicitly stating that "quantum safety has shifted up a LOT in priority" . The Strawmap names three concrete cryptographic schemes to replace every existing elliptic-curve signature (ECDSA, BLS) with post-quantum alternatives :
This requires a full cryptographic redesign across both the protocol and rollup data storage, with core infrastructure milestones targeting completion by approximately 2029 . Buterin proposed EIP-8288 in June 2026 to specify the post-quantum signature framework .
Strong privacy became a "core requirement" rather than a peripheral concern — what Buterin and the Ethereum Foundation now call a "first-class" protocol goal . The Strawmap integrates privacy mechanisms directly into Layer 1, including built-in stealth addresses, privacy-preserving transaction pools ("privacy pools"), and protocol-level support for private transfers via designs like "wormholes" that let users move value without exposing their full transaction history .
As part of the broader restructuring, the Ethereum Foundation shut down the separate Privacy and Scaling Explorations (PSE) lab in June 2026, folding that work into core protocol development .
"Native rollups" did not exist in the 2023 roadmap and are a significant new addition . The Strawmap envisions rollups that are no longer separate L2 projects run by third-party teams, but protocol-enforced execution environments. This enables the Teragas L2 target of ~10 million TPS across the rollup ecosystem . Native rollups tighten trust-minimization between L1 and L2 and reduce reliance on external sequencers. Buterin noted that SNARK technology was "nowhere near mature enough to even consider this back in 2023" .
Several high-profile 2023 roadmap items were deprioritized or removed entirely :
The Strawmap explicitly plans for a future beyond the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) . Two candidates are being explored to replace or supplement the EVM as the execution environment:
A binary state tree overhaul (EIP-7864) is seen as a prerequisite for any EVM replacement, since the current Patricia-Merkle trie structure limits execution-layer innovation . Buterin has described his ideal end state as reducing the EVM to a compile-target feature, with the protocol layer only directly seeing RISC-V or leanISA, though he emphasized this step is "still far away" .
The 2023 roadmap treated ZK proofs as one option among several. The Strawmap makes recursive STARKs the single trust mechanism: instead of every node re-executing every transaction, a node verifies a compact recursive proof that the computation was done correctly . Buterin described this as making recursive STARKs "an enshrined first-class core component of the protocol" .
AI-assisted formal verification is a brand-new addition since 2023 . The Strawmap explicitly calls for using modern AI tools to formally verify protocol code and cryptographic implementations, addressing the historic bottleneck where formal verification was too slow and expensive for fast-moving protocol development. Buterin stated that full formal verification of everything is "only possible because of modern AI" .
The Strawmap does not exist in isolation. On June 23, 2026, the Ethereum Foundation announced its deepest restructuring ever :
The restructuring was presented as a months-long process tied to the EF's updated Mandate (published March 2026) and Treasury Management Policy (adopted June 2025), aimed at making the organization leaner and more focused as the protocol enters its most aggressive upgrade cycle since The Merge .