Author: Rejamong, Four Pillars
Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News
Ethereum was launched in 2015, and it has now entered its eleventh year. Along the way, it transitioned its consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake through The Merge, and subsequently completed the upgrades Shapella, Dencun, Pectra, and Fusaka. Ethereum is constantly evolving. If you plan to invest in Ethereum or choose to build applications on Ethereum, it is crucial to understand its long-term evolution goals.
On July 2025, the day after Ethereum's tenth anniversary, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake proposed the vision of Lean Ethereum. "Lean" means removing redundant designs. This roadmap integrates various decentralized research directions of Ethereum, retaining only the core necessary modules to form a unified development blueprint. You can think of it as a ten-year-old house that maintains its appearance, but its foundation, pipes, and wiring have been replaced.
In February 2026, this vision materialized in a draft document called "Strawmap." As the name suggests, this is just a framework draft, not a finalized plan; the community continues to discuss, and the document is constantly updated, with the document being revised again on June 26. The latest version planned for the upgrades from the second half of 2026's Glamsterdam upgrade to the hard forks until 2029, clearly stating that all upgrades ultimately point to five development goals, referred to as the North Star goals in the document.
This article outlines the five North Star goals, illustrating the prospects of Ethereum in 2030, four years later.
Fast L1: Further Speeding Up the Mainnet
The first North Star goal is the speed of the Ethereum L1 network itself. Currently, Ethereum transactions take about 15 minutes for final confirmation, and transaction results cannot be rolled back. With about 880,000 validators across the network, it is impossible to unify votes for each block; collecting and processing massive signatures at once exceeds the network's capacity. Therefore, Ethereum divides validators into 32 groups that take turns voting, requiring two complete voting cycles for final confirmation.
The lean consensus mechanism will leverage zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs) to eliminate this bottleneck. Hundreds of thousands of voting results can be compressed into a short mathematical proof, allowing all validators to participate in each block's voting, with voting results aggregated instantaneously. The ultimate goal is to achieve final confirmation within a single voting round.
The block interval will also be shortened. Ethereum currently produces one block every 12 seconds, divided into three segments, each occupying 4 seconds: the block proposer broadcasts the block to the entire network, validators conduct voting, and voting information is summarized.
This timing standard was established in 2020 when the beacon chain (the proof-of-stake consensus layer of Ethereum) was primarily designed to accommodate home devices and slow networks. Now client software and global network environments have significantly improved, and real tests show that each link takes far less time than the preset limit. Based on this, the plan aims to reduce block time from 12 seconds to 6 seconds in 2027-2028. In 2029-2030, the lean consensus mechanism will be implemented, coupled with a new generation of peer-to-peer communication protocols, significantly improving the efficiency of block and voting information dissemination, further reducing block time to 4 seconds.
Once the block interval reaches 4 seconds, the average waiting time from initiating a transaction to completion will be about 2 seconds. Coupled with a faster final confirmation mechanism, the entire process of initiating a transaction, executing it, and achieving irreversible confirmation will be compressed to just a few seconds.
Another goal of the lean consensus mechanism is to lower the minimum staking threshold for validators from 32 ETH to 1 ETH. With lower entry barriers, more users can directly participate in network governance. Ethereum's goal in 2030 is to be faster while also being more decentralized, allowing more people to participate in the consensus process.
One Billion Gas L1: One Billion Gas Throughput per Second
The second North Star goal is the throughput capacity. Gas is the unit that Ethereum uses to measure computation. Currently, the Ethereum L1 network processes about 5 million Gas per second, with a long-term goal of reaching 1 billion Gas per second (gigagas), enhancing the mainnet throughput by approximately 200 times.
The biggest obstacle comes from the repeat execution mechanism, which is the fundamental validation model of blockchain. After a new block is created, thousands of nodes worldwide need to independently re-run all transactions within the block. It’s like a student figuring out the answer, while the entire class recalculates from scratch to verify the results. This mechanism ensures a decentralized network's credibility but also creates a long-term dilemma: high performance and decentralization are hard to achieve together. If ordinary people are to run nodes, throughput must be limited; to boost throughput, it must rely on a few high-performance nodes.
The technology that breaks this deadlock is still the zero-knowledge proof. The node packing the block simultaneously submits a mathematical proof that certifies all transaction executions within the block are correct. Other nodes do not need to re-execute transactions; they only need to verify the proof. The computational power required to verify the proof is extremely low, even mobile devices can handle it. Applying this solution to L1 block validation is referred to as L1 ZK-EVM, with the Ethereum Foundation officially releasing the roadmap in February 2026.
According to the "Strawmap" plan, the first stage will run both the traditional repeat execution and ZK proof in parallel, with the proof mechanism being optional. From 2028-2029, it will transition to a mandatory proof mode, where blocks are validated solely by ZK proofs. By this stage, regardless of how many transactions a block contains, the node verification burden will no longer increase. This supports the continual raising of the Gas limit, ultimately sprinting toward the goal of 1 billion Gas per second.
For ordinary users, this means that wallets (phones, browsers) can directly verify the entire blockchain without trusting third-party RPC nodes. Relying on this verification system, Ethereum moves from "decentralized" to "trustless."
Trillion Gas L2: High-Speed Data Channels Supporting Massive Rollups
The third North Star goal is aimed at Layer 2 networks (L2). L2 executes transactions outside of the Ethereum mainnet, only uploading the final transaction data to L1, inheriting L1's security. The space in L1 specifically used for storing such data is called Blob, and the total capacity of Blobs determines the upper limit of throughput for all L2 networks.
In December 2025, the Fusaka hard fork launched PeerDAS technology, allowing nodes to only verify part of the Blob data, laying the groundwork for massive scaling of Blob numbers. The Glamsterdam upgrade candidate will further optimize the efficiency of Blob network transmission and storage. The "Strawmap" plans to steadily expand data carrying capacity year by year, ultimately reaching data bandwidth of 1GB per second, supporting L2 ecosystems at the trillion Gas scale. This bandwidth is sufficient to transmit data equivalent to a high-definition video file every few seconds.
This roadmap clearly delineates the boundaries of Ethereum's division of labor. Even if all upgrades are implemented, the L1 network's throughput will still have structural limitations compared to high-performance public chains like Solana. Applications pursuing ultra-high performance will connect to the Ethereum ecosystem through independent L2 networks.
Robinhood Chain is a typical case, with Robinhood launching its self-developed Ethereum L2 network for tokenized stock trading, fully inheriting Ethereum's security while autonomously handling various business requirements on L2, including compliance and regulatory arrangements.
Thus, Ethereum in 2030 will form a large settlement network pattern: L1 responsible for final settlement and security assurance, while multiple L2 networks serving their specific functions and deeply optimizing for different business scenarios.
Quantum-Resistant L1 Network: Unfazed by Quantum Computing Threats
The fourth North Star goal is to achieve resistance to quantum attacks. Ethereum's current signature scheme uses the ECDSA algorithm for wallets and the BLS algorithm for validators. Once a sufficiently powerful quantum computer is developed, the existing cryptographic system will be compromised. The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has indicated that the ECDSA algorithm should gradually be phased out by 2030 and fully banned by 2035; Google has set 2029 as the deadline for switching its internal systems to quantum-resistant encryption technology. The arrival of quantum technology capable of breaking Ethereum's cryptographic algorithms is faster than previously anticipated by the market.
The core solution is to adopt a hash-based cryptographic system to replace the existing signature algorithms, as such technology can withstand quantum attacks. At the same time, hash signatures are compatible with ZK proofs, connecting them with the technical route of gigagas L1 networks. The Ethereum Foundation established a dedicated post-quantum research team in January 2026 and offered a $1 million reward to verify the security of hash functions.
According to the "Strawmap" plan, the transition will span multiple hard forks. Initially, it will support the pre-registration of quantum-resistant public keys, followed by completing the modifications for validator voting signatures, transaction layers, and data layers, with the goal of building an L1 network based on a hash-based cryptographic system by 2029. If the plan successfully materializes, Ethereum will still ensure asset security after the advent of quantum computing.
Privacy-Native L1 Network: Transaction Privacy Becomes a Fundamental Capability
The final North Star goal is a capability that Ethereum has never had. Currently, all transactions on Ethereum are public, and anyone can query account balances and all historical transfer records through an address. For individuals, this poses privacy risks; for businesses wanting to issue salaries or pay suppliers on-chain, public transaction information directly hinders application adoption.
The L1 privacy plan aims to achieve obscured transactions, enclosing what is currently completely public like a postcard into a sealed envelope. The sender, receiver, and transaction amount are hidden from external view while relying on ZK proofs to confirm to the network that the transaction is compliant with the rules. ZK proofs run through Ethereum's entire upgrade route, with privacy transformation being one of the most significant aspects.
According to the "Strawmap," the privacy infrastructure is expected to land as early as the Hegotá hard fork, with the next phase of upgrades modifying the transaction memory pool, encrypting content before transactions are recorded on-chain. Among the five goals, the details of privacy-related plans are the most ambiguous and highly influenced by regulatory environments, with the highest level of uncertainty. Nevertheless, Ethereum is the first to include L1 native privacy in its official roadmap, marking a significant shift.
Conclusion: Ethereum Four Years Later
The five North Star goals can be summarized as follows:
- Fast L1: Transaction final confirmation time reduced from 15 minutes to a few seconds, block interval decreased from 12 seconds to 4 seconds;
- One Billion Gas L1: ZK proof replaces the repeat execution mechanism, L1 processes 1 billion Gas per second, throughput increased by approximately 200 times;
- Trillion Gas L2: L2 data carrying capacity expanded to 1GB per second, supporting numerous Rollups running in parallel;
- Quantum-Resistant L1: Signature system switched to hash cryptography, confidently responding to quantum computing impacts;
- Privacy-Native L1: Hides transaction information while proving transaction compliance, becoming a standard function of Ethereum.
The main body promoting the implementation of the roadmap is also changing. The Ethereum Foundation has recently laid off about 20% of its workforce, gradually shrinking its functions, with many emerging institutions filling the ecological gap. In June 2026, Ethlabs was officially established, a non-profit research institution supported by Ethereum ecosystem companies and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin; a week later, Ethereum Institutional was launched by former team members of the Foundation. Ethereum is evolving towards a purer open-source system, with small foundations collaborating with numerous independent organizations to drive development.
Of course, all plans cannot guarantee timely implementation. The "Strawmap" is just a continuously revised draft, not a finalized roadmap. The upcoming Glamsterdam hard fork has already been postponed from the first half of 2026 to the second half. Development progress may be delayed, cryptographic algorithms may need longer safety audits, and which functions to include in each hard fork will continue to adjust with researcher and community discussions.
Regardless of how the final implementation manifests, Ethereum will still be the world's most neutral and trustless general-purpose computing network. The "Strawmap" clearly sets the goals: while retaining its core positioning, it aims to become faster, have stronger carrying capacity, and ensure higher security.
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