Ethereum Just Mapped Out Its Biggest Upgrade in Years — Here’s What’s Coming

TLDR

• Ethereum’s “Strawmap” roadmap targets block time reduction from 12 seconds to 2 seconds over four years
• Transaction finality will drop from ~16 minutes to 6–16 seconds
• The network plans to become quantum-resistant using hash-based cryptography
• Seven protocol forks are planned, roughly every six months
• Goals include 10K TPS on L1 and 10M TPS on L2 via zero-knowledge tech

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared details on a new four-year development plan for the Ethereum network. The plan is built around a document called the “Strawmap,” published by the Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol team.

The Strawmap started as an internal tool in January 2026. It is now a public, work-in-progress document that outlines one possible path for Ethereum’s base layer development over the next decade.

Buterin described the roadmap as covering two largely independent tracks. One focuses on speeding up block production, and the other focuses on faster transaction finality.

Ethereum currently produces a new block every 12 seconds. The roadmap targets cutting that down to 2 seconds, in stages following a rough square-root-of-two pattern: 12, 8, 6, 4, and then 2 seconds.

Buterin said improvements to how Ethereum nodes communicate with each other — called peer-to-peer or p2p improvements — will help make shorter block times possible without any security trade-offs.

Transaction finality currently takes around 16 minutes. The goal is to bring that down to between 6 and 16 seconds.

Quantum Resistance Built Into the Plan

To reach faster finality, Ethereum plans to replace its current confirmation system with a simpler one. That new system will also use post-quantum, hash-based cryptography.

One outcome of the step-by-step approach is that the block production layer could become quantum-resistant before the finality layer does. Buterin said that if quantum computers suddenly appeared, the network would lose its finality guarantee but the chain would keep running.

Throughput and Privacy Goals

The Strawmap also sets targets around throughput and privacy. The L1 goal is 10,000 transactions per second, using zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machines and real-time proving.

Layer 2 networks on top of Ethereum aim for 10 million transactions per second through data availability sampling.

The roadmap also includes a goal for shielded ETH transfers, which would bring first-class privacy to the network.

Seven protocol forks are planned over the next four years, spaced roughly six months apart. Two forks — Glamsterdam and Hegotá — are already confirmed for later in 2026.

The Strawmap is described as a living document. The Ethereum Foundation says it will update the roadmap at least quarterly as research and community feedback develop.

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