Ethereum Foundation Unveils “Strawmap” — 7 Forks Planned Through 2029
On February 26, 2026, Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake published the “strawmap” — a long-term technical roadmap projecting seven major protocol forks between now and the end of 2029, implying roughly one upgrade every six months.
The document — intentionally named “strawmap” (strawman + roadmap) to signal it is not an official, consensus-driven plan — serves as a discussion starter and dependency map for Ethereum’s core development teams.
It is maintained by the EF Architecture team and will be revised quarterly.
Five “North Stars” Guiding the Roadmap
Drake identified five overarching technical objectives (“north stars”):
- Fast L1 — slot times and finality measured in seconds
- Gigagas L1 — 1 gigagas/s (~10,000 TPS) via zkEVMs + real-time proving
- Teragas L2 — 1 GB/s data bandwidth (~10M TPS) via data availability sampling
- Post-Quantum L1 — migration to hash-based signatures resistant to quantum attacks
- Private L1 — native shielded ETH transfers for “first-class” base-layer privacy
These goals drive the sequence of proposed forks.
Vitalik Buterin’s Slot & Finality Reduction Timeline
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin called the strawmap “very important” and provided detailed commentary on X on February 26, 2026. He outlined a progressive reduction in:
- Slot time (time between block proposals): 12 s → 8 s → 6 s → 4 s → 3 s → 2 s (last steps require significant research)
- Finality time (time after which blocks become irreversible): 16 minutes → 6–16 seconds
One illustrative path Buterin shared:
- 8-second slots + current finality → ~10 min 40 s finality
- One-epoch finality → ~6 min 24 s
- Further optimizations → down to 8–16 seconds
He emphasized that these upgrades will be rolled out incrementally, with larger steps bundled with:
- switch to post-quantum hash-based signatures
- adoption of a maximally STARK-friendly hash function
Researchers are currently evaluating responses to recent Poseidon2 attacks (increase rounds, revert to Poseidon1, or switch to BLAKE3).
Timeline & Caveats
- Target completion: end of 2029 for the seven forks
- Potential acceleration: AI-assisted development or breakthroughs in formal verification could compress the schedule
- Not set in stone: Drake stressed the strawmap is a strawman — not a binding plan — and will evolve with community input
Quick Investor Takeaways
- The roadmap signals continued focus on scaling, privacy, and post-quantum security — all long-term positives for Ethereum’s competitiveness.
- No immediate token unlock or issuance changes are proposed in the strawmap.
- ETH price reaction was muted on publication day (still trading near $4,070 after earlier weakness), but the document strengthens the narrative of long-term technical leadership.
- Watch for All Core Devs calls and EF Architecture quarterly updates for the next revision.
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