The Ethereum Foundation has unveiled a long-term technological development roadmap for the network, extending to 2029. The Lean Ethereum concept — or, as it's known in the community, the "strawmap" — envisions a large-scale protocol restructuring comparable in significance to the transition to Proof-of-Stake during The Merge. This is not merely a set of targeted improvements, but a full-fledged transformation of the decentralized system.
Five "Guiding Stars" of the New Roadmap
Developers have outlined five key objectives around which the entire modernization is built. First, accelerating the base layer: slot creation time is planned to be reduced from the current 12 seconds to 2 seconds, and finalization from 16 minutes to 8 seconds. Second, increasing L1 throughput to 10,000 TPS through zkEVM and real-time proof generation. Third, scaling L2 to the "teragas" level — approximately 10 million TPS — via a new approach to data availability. Fourth, implementing post-quantum protection based on hashing. And finally, enhancing privacy: hidden ETH transfers that do not reveal transaction details on the public blockchain.
Key Upgrades: Glamsterdam and Hegota
The next hard forks will be Glamsterdam (expected in the second half of 2026) and Hegota. The former will introduce the ePBS mechanism, separating block production and attestation tasks, as well as Block-Level Access Lists (BAL) to increase the gas limit and combat MEV. Hegota, according to Vitalik Buterin, will be the last upgrade "before the Lean era" and will focus on scalability and data management optimization.
Cryptography, Consensus, and Speed
One of the most radical changes is replacing classic transaction verification with recursive STARK proofs. This will eliminate the need for each node to re-execute operations, making the network more efficient. Privacy is now a priority: developers are embedding shielded transfers into the mempool and the interaction infrastructure. Concurrently, post-quantum protection is being introduced for account signatures, validators, BLOB objects, and ZK systems. The interim solution SPHINCS+ will allow securing accounts for just $0.07 without a hard fork.
The Most Controversial Part: State Storage
Buterin called the restructuring of state storage "the most radical part of the plan." It proposes preserving dynamic state (about 2 TB) and adding new storage types (up to 100 TB) for ERC-20, NFT, and DeFi scenarios. Transferring a token to the new UTXO scheme could reduce fees by more than ten times. However, the question of incentives for storing the growing volume of data remains open — developers do not want each node to hold only 1%.
Community Reaction and My Expert Assessment
The plan was generally received positively, but with reservations. StarkWare co-founder Eli Ben-Sasson praised the focus on STARK and quantum security but called the timeline too long. Former Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist suggested completing it within a year using AI tools. At the same time, some ETH holders expressed disappointment: "Three roadmaps behind us, and gas still spikes to $50." On Reddit, fatigue is noticeable from the abundance of plans while basic problems persist.
My analysis: Lean Ethereum sets the right direction — speed, low cost, and quantum resilience. However, the key risk is the time gap between promises and actual improvements. Users may not wait for the effect if fees continue to rise and finalization remains slow. Success will depend on how quickly developers can turn the "strawmap" into working upgrades, fork by fork.