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Ethereum News
Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined a sweeping protocol overhaul on July 5, calling it “the third major iteration” of the network and comparing its scale to the September 2022 Merge. Writing on X, Buterin said the initiative, called “Lean Ethereum,” will roll out across three to four years through a series of upgrades, with nearly every major component of the protocol eventually replaced. The post followed a meeting of Ethereum researchers held in Berlin in late June 2026.
The updated draft roadmap is published at Strawmap(dot)org, a document first introduced in February 2026 by Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake. It outlines seven planned network upgrades through 2029. Buterin described the upcoming hard fork Hegota, currently Ethereum’s second scheduled upgrade of 2026, as almost certainly the last one to predate the Lean Ethereum effort.
Data Storage Overhaul at the Center of the Plan
Buterin identified changes to how Ethereum stores state data as “probably the single most disruptive part of the plan.” The network currently holds all data, including token balances and smart contract logic, in a single format that is costly to maintain. The revised design would keep that system for complex applications while adding a cheaper storage tier for simpler ones.
To illustrate the potential scale, Buterin described a scenario in which the cheaper tier holds 50 times more data than the existing one by 2030. Most tokens, NFTs, and DeFi applications could migrate to the cheaper tier voluntarily, while complex systems such as automated market makers would remain on the current format. He said a token redesigned for the new tier could see transaction fees fall by more than 10 times without any app being forced to move.
Quantum Safety and Privacy Both Rise in Priority
Buterin said quantum resistance has “shifted up a LOT in priority,” citing the risk that future quantum computers could break the cryptography currently securing blockchain networks. He identified finding a quantum-safe design for blobs, the temporary data packets that layer-2 networks use to reduce their fees, as the most urgent piece of that work, noting it has already been underway for months.
Privacy received the same level of emphasis. Buterin wrote that it is “no longer an afterthought” and is now “a first-class goal,” with new protocol features being designed from the start around how private transactions will function. Both quantum resistance and native private ETH transfers at the base layer appear among the Strawmap’s five “north star” goals. Buterin also named RISC-V and leanISA as the most likely long-term replacements for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), while acknowledging the transition is “still far away.” His preferred outcome is a network running fully on a new engine, with the current EVM retained as a compatibility layer so existing applications keep working. Researchers at Offchain Labs, the core developer behind Arbitrum, had argued in November 2025 that WebAssembly would be the better choice, though it did not appear in Buterin’s July 5 list.
The announcement came roughly 10 days after the Ethereum Foundation completed a staffing restructure that eliminated 54 positions, around 20% of its workforce, as part of a plan to cut its budget by 40%. Several senior figures had already departed before those cuts, including Hsiao-Wei Wang, Tomasz Stańczak, Tim Beiko, and Barnabé Monnot.
Dankrad Feist, a researcher behind the payments-focused layer-1 Tempo blockchain, said the plan was well-designed but argued that AI tooling could compress the timeline to a single year. Crypto analyst Ignas Fiodorovas supported the direction but questioned whether the Ethereum Foundation would meet the stated deadlines given its history of delays, and said the one element missing from the roadmap was a plan to address ETH tokenomics as the token continued to fall in price.
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