Ethereum's biggest overhaul since the Merge: Vitalik Buterin maps three-year rebuild
In brief
- Buterin frames rebuild as Ethereum's third major iteration, comparable to the 2022 Merge transition to proof-of-stake
- Nearly every protocol component will be replaced over three to four years without requiring app migrations
- Quantum-safe cryptography and privacy become first-class goals, with recursive STARKs and multidimensional gas pricing central
- Hegotá fork likely Ethereum's last before Lean era begins, followed by Glamsterdam and further upgrades
- By 2030, Ethereum could hold roughly 2TB of current state and 100 terabytes of new, more scalable storage
The Lean Ethereum vision
Ethereum researchers met in Berlin two weeks prior to chart the protocol's long-term trajectory. Buterin's proposal centers on quantum safety and privacy as foundational rather than optional. Almost every major component will be replaced over three or four years, he said, without forcing existing apps to migrate.
The technical roadmap includes significant shifts. Ethereum would verify a compact cryptographic proof of the chain using recursive STARKs, a form of zero-knowledge proof that Buterin wants enshrined as a core protocol component. He also floated a simpler consensus with one or two-round finality, multidimensional gas pricing, and, eventually, a shift beyond the EVM toward an instruction set such as RISC-V.
Quantum safety and storage
Guarding against the threat posed by Q-Day has climbed the agenda, with work on quantum-resistant blobs already months along. Privacy, he wrote, is now a "first-class goal" rather than an add-on, factored into pieces like the mempool and the state tree.
By 2030, Buterin sketched a network holding roughly 2TB of today's flexible "dynamic" state alongside 100 terabytes of a new, more scalable but restrictive type. Rewriting an ERC-20 token onto the new storage would not be mandatory, he said, but could cut its fees more than tenfold.
Timeline and fork sequence
The coming Hegotá fork will likely be Ethereum's last before the "Lean" era begins. A large gas-limit increase is expected at the nearer-term Glamsterdam upgrade and further gains in capacity and speed over roughly five years.
The plan lands at a lean moment for the Ethereum Foundation itself, which recently cut staff and tightened its budget. Still, the roadmap signals the foundation's commitment to long-term protocol innovation, even as near-term resource constraints tighten.
