Ethereum developers back Buterin's Lean roadmap but push for faster execution
In brief
- Vitalik Buterin published updated Lean Ethereum strawmap proposing sweeping technical changes.
- Ethereum developers agree on privacy, cryptography, and scaling direction.
- Researchers argue three-to-four-year timeline is too slow; execution speed is core debate.
Support for the vision, skepticism on timing
Many of Ethereum's leading developers agree with the roadmap's direction. Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of StarkWare, praised Ethereum's decision to put recursive STARKs at the center of its future—a cryptographic technique designed to make the network much easier to scale. But he argued Ethereum shouldn't wait three to four years to get there.
Dankrad Feist, a former Ethereum Foundation researcher, struck a similar tone. Calling the roadmap's vision "really cool," Feist's biggest concern was speed. "But 3-4 years is very slow. I think we should be ambitious and get it done in ~1 year," he wrote. Feist even suggested recent advances in AI tools, including large language models, could help accelerate development.
The roadmap's shifting priorities
The updated version reshuffles Ethereum's technical priorities. Barnabé Monnot noted that some upgrades designed to speed up block production had been pushed further into the future, while changes to Ethereum's consensus system had moved up the roadmap. Ben-Sasson also questioned one of Buterin's proposals to introduce new types of blockchain "state."
These shifts reflect deeper tradeoffs in how the network evolves. Rather than questioning the roadmap's core ideas—such as better privacy, stronger cryptography, and new ways to scale the blockchain—the debate is increasingly about execution. The original Lean Ethereum strawmap was published in February. What matters now is whether developers can compress years of work into months.
That's the real test ahead.
