TLDR
- Vitalik Buterin compared Ethereum’s 2023 roadmap to its updated 2026 Strawmap, highlighting major new priorities
- Privacy is now a core requirement, with tools like privacy pools and wormholes added to protect user activity
- Quantum security has moved closer to the front of the roadmap as a standalone concern
- Native rollups were absent from the 2023 plan but are now being explored as ZK proof systems have matured
- AI-assisted formal verification and STARK proofs are set to play a bigger role across all protocol layers
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin posted a comparison of the network’s 2023 roadmap against its current Strawmap on August 10, showing how the project’s technical priorities have shifted over three years.
I updated my 2023 roadmap diagram to overlay where the items that were there sit in the current Strawmap ( https://t.co/9deLIQWG24 ).
In general, a lot of overlap, but:
* Some things got reshuffled in order (eg. quantum safety up-prioritized)
* Some things deprioritized (eg.… pic.twitter.com/XLdIt4kAgT— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) August 10, 2026
The Strawmap is a coordination document covering proposed upgrades through 2029. It is not a fixed schedule but a working draft that developers can revise as research progresses.
Privacy Becomes a Core Goal
Privacy was not part of Ethereum’s 2023 roadmap at all. It is now treated as a fundamental requirement, sitting alongside censorship resistance and security.
Buterin listed several privacy tools now under consideration, including keyed nonces, recent roots, lean privacy pools, and wormholes. These are designed to limit what outside observers can learn from a user’s transaction history.
Parts of FOCIL, or Fork-Choice Enforced Inclusion Lists, also appear in the privacy section. FOCIL is intended to make transaction inclusion more resistant to censorship by block builders, and it is expected to be a headline feature of Ethereum’s planned Hegota hard fork.
Quantum Safety Moves Up the Priority List
Quantum security was not prominently featured in the 2023 roadmap. It now sits near the front of Ethereum’s long-term planning.
Ethereum currently uses cryptographic systems that could become vulnerable if powerful quantum computers are developed. Replacing them without inflating signature sizes or network costs presents a real engineering challenge.
The current roadmap looks at LeanSPHINCS signatures, signature aggregation, and zkzk frames as possible parts of a post-quantum solution. An Ethereum researcher previously showed that wallet-level post-quantum protection could cost as little as $0.07 per account.
Native Rollups Now on the Table
Native rollups did not appear in the 2023 roadmap because zero-knowledge proof systems were not mature enough at the time.
Rollups currently work as separate layer-2 systems, processing transactions outside Ethereum’s main layer and submitting proofs back to the base network. A native rollup would bring part of that verification process directly into Ethereum’s base protocol.
Buterin said the network is also moving away from a single general scaling mechanism. Instead, developers may build more restricted but highly scalable systems for specific use cases like token transfers, decentralized exchange trades, and privacy applications.
Blob and gas futures are another new addition. These markets could let users or layer-2 networks lock in future access to Ethereum’s data or execution capacity.
Buterin also said AI could make large-scale formal verification of the protocol more practical. Recursive STARKs may eventually operate across Ethereum’s execution, consensus, and data layers.
Ethereum’s virtual machine could also change over time, with leanISA and RISC-V listed as possible alternatives, though Buterin said this remains too early for the current Strawmap.
Ether traded near $1,875 at the time of writing, down about 2.6% over the previous 24 hours.
