Written by: Jang Hyuk-soo Compiled by: Chopper, Foresight News

Ethereum was launched in 2015 and is now in its eleventh year. Along the way, it converted the consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake through The Merge, and subsequently completed upgrades to Shapella, Dencun, Pectra, and Fusaka. Ethereum is always undergoing continuous iteration. If you plan to invest in Ethereum, or choose Ethereum to build applications, it is important to clarify its long-term evolution goals.

In July 2025, the day after the tenth anniversary of the launch of Ethereum, Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, proposed the vision of Lean Ethereum. "Streamlining" means eliminating redundant designs. This roadmap integrates the scattered research directions of Ethereum and retains only the core necessary modules to form a unified development blueprint. You can think of it like a ten-year-old house, the exterior remains the same, but the foundation, pipes, and wiring have all been replaced.

In February 2026, this vision was implemented as a draft document called "Strawmap". As the name suggests, this is just a draft framework, not a final plan. The community continues to discuss and the document is constantly updated. The document was revised again on June 26. The latest version plans all hard forks from the Glamsterdam upgrade in the second half of 2026 to 2029, and clarifies that all upgrades will ultimately lead to five major development goals, which are called North Star goals in the article.

This article focuses on five North Star goals to describe the prospects of Ethereum four years later in 2030.

Fast L1: Further speeding up the mainnet

The first North Star goal is the speed of the Ethereum L1 network itself. Ethereum transactions currently take approximately 15 minutes to achieve final confirmation, and transaction results cannot be rolled back. The approximately 880,000 validators on the entire network are unable to vote uniformly for each block, and collecting and processing a large number of signatures at one time exceeds the network's carrying capacity. Therefore, Ethereum divides validators into 32 groups to vote in turn, and two complete voting cycles are required to complete the final confirmation.

The streamlined consensus mechanism will eliminate this bottleneck with the help of zero-knowledge proofs (ZK proofs). Hundreds of thousands of voting results can be compressed into a short mathematical proof. All validators can participate in voting for each block, and the voting results are aggregated instantly. The ultimate goal is to achieve final confirmation by a single vote.

The block interval will also be shortened. Ethereum currently produces a block every 12 seconds. The 12 seconds are divided into three sections, each occupying 4 seconds: the block proposer broadcasts the block to the entire network, the verifiers vote, and the voting information is summarized.

This set of time standards was formulated in 2020. At that time, the beacon chain (Proof of Stake Ethereum consensus layer) was designed to mainly adapt to home devices and low-speed networks. Nowadays, the client software and global network environment have been greatly improved, and actual measurements show that the time spent in each link is far below the preset upper limit. Based on this, it is planned to shorten the block generation time from 12 seconds to 6 seconds in 2027-2028. In 2029-2030, a streamlined consensus mechanism will be implemented, equipped with a new generation of point-to-point communication protocol, the efficiency of block and voting information dissemination will be greatly improved, and the block generation time will be further reduced to 4 seconds.

After the block generation interval reaches 4 seconds, the average waiting time from the time a user initiates a transaction to the completion of execution is about 2 seconds. Coupled with a faster final confirmation mechanism, the entire process of transaction initiation, execution, and irreversible confirmation is reduced to a few seconds.

Another goal of streamlining the consensus mechanism is to lower the minimum pledge threshold for validators from 32 ETH to 1 ETH. The barriers to entry are lowered and more users can directly participate in network governance. Ethereum’s goal in 2030 is to be faster and more decentralized, allowing more people to participate in the consensus process.

1 billion Gas L1: One billion Gas throughput per second

The second North Star goal is throughput. Gas is Ethereum’s unit of measurement for computation. The current Ethereum L1 network processes approximately 5 million Gas per second, with the long-term goal of reaching 1 billion Gas per second (gigabit Gas), and the main network throughput increasing by approximately 200 times.

The biggest obstacle comes from the repeated execution mechanism, which is the basic verification mode of the blockchain. After a new block is generated, thousands of nodes around the world need to independently rerun all transactions in the block. For example, if one student calculates the answer, everyone in the class will calculate it again to check the result. This mechanism ensures the credibility of the decentralized network, but it also creates a long-term problem: it is difficult to achieve both decentralization and high performance. If you want ordinary people to be able to run nodes, the throughput must be limited; if you want to increase the throughput, you must rely on a small number of high-performance nodes.

The technology to break the deadlock is still zero-knowledge proof. The node that packages the block also submits a mathematical proof to confirm that all transactions in the block are executed correctly. The remaining nodes do not need to repeat the transaction and only verify the proof. The computing power required to verify the proof is extremely low and can be completed with mobile devices. Applying this solution to L1 block verification is L1 ZK-EVM. The Ethereum Foundation has released an official roadmap in February 2026.

According to the "Strawmap" plan, the first phase runs traditional repeated execution and ZK proof in parallel, with the proof mechanism as an optional solution. From 2028 to 2029, it will switch to a mandatory certification mode, and blocks will be verified only with ZK certification. At this stage, no matter how many transactions the block contains, the node verification burden no longer increases. This provides support for the continued increase in the gas limit, and the ultimate goal of reaching 1 billion gas per second.

For ordinary users, this means that wallets (mobile phones, browsers) can directly and completely verify the entire blockchain without trusting third-party RPC nodes. Relying on this verification system, Ethereum has moved from “decentralization” to “trustlessness”.

Trillion-level Gas L2: Data highway supporting massive Rollup

The third North Star goal is towards layer two networks (L2). L2 executes transactions outside the Ethereum main network and only uploads the final transaction data to L1, inheriting the security of L1. The space dedicated to storing this type of data in L1 is called a blob, and the total capacity of the blob determines the throughput limit for all L2 networks.

In December 2025, the Fusaka hard fork launched PeerDAS technology, allowing nodes to verify only part of the Blob data, laying the foundation for large-scale expansion of the number of Blobs. The Glamsterdam upgrade candidate will further optimize Blob network transmission and storage efficiency. "Strawmap" plans to steadily expand its data carrying capacity year by year, eventually reaching 1GB of data bandwidth per second, supporting a trillion-level gas-scale L2 ecosystem. The bandwidth is enough to transmit an HD video's worth of data every few seconds.

This roadmap clearly delineates the boundaries of Ethereum’s division of labor. Even if all upgrades are implemented, there is still a structural upper limit to L1 network throughput compared to high-performance public chains such as Solana. Applications pursuing ultra-high performance will be connected to the Ethereum ecosystem through the independent L2 network.

Robinhood Chain is a typical case. Robinhood launched a self-developed Ethereum L2 network to carry tokenized stock transactions, fully inheriting the security of Ethereum, and at the same time independently handling various business needs in L2, including compliance supervision related arrangements.

Therefore, Ethereum in 2030 will form a large-scale settlement network structure: L1 is responsible for final settlement and security, and multiple L2 networks perform their own duties and are deeply optimized for different business scenarios.

Quantum-resistant L1 network: no fear of quantum computing threats

The fourth North Star goal is to achieve resistance to quantum attacks. In Ethereum's current signature scheme, the wallet uses the ECDSA algorithm and the verifier uses the BLS algorithm. Once a quantum computer with sufficient computing power becomes available, the existing encryption system will be cracked. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reminds that the ECDSA algorithm should be phased out from 2030 and completely disabled in 2035; Google has set a deadline of 2029 for internal systems to switch to quantum-resistant encryption technology. Quantum technology that can crack the Ethereum encryption algorithm is arriving faster than the market had expected.

The core solution is to replace the existing signature algorithm with a hash-based cryptographic system that can withstand quantum attacks. At the same time, hash signatures and ZK certificates have good compatibility and are interconnected with the technical routes of the Gigabit Gas L1 network. The Ethereum Foundation has established a dedicated post-quantum research and development team in January 2026 and set up a $1 million bonus to verify the security of hash functions.

According to the "Strawmap" plan, the switching work spans multiple hard forks. First, it supports pre-registration of quantum-resistant public keys, and then completes the verifier voting signature, transaction layer, and data layer transformation in sequence. It is expected to build an L1 network based on the hash encryption system in 2029. If the plan is successfully implemented, Ethereum will still be able to ensure asset security after the advent of the quantum computing era.

Privacy-native L1 network: transaction privacy becomes a basic capability

The final North Star goal is the ability Ethereum has never had. Currently, all transactions in Ethereum are open to the public, and anyone can check the account balance and all historical transfer records through the address. For individuals, this poses a privacy risk; companies want to issue salaries and pay suppliers on the chain, and the disclosure of transaction information directly hinders the implementation of applications.

The L1 privacy solution aims to shield transfers and put transactions that are now as completely public as postcards into sealed envelopes. The transfer party, receiver, and transaction amount are hidden from the outside world, and the ZK certificate is relied on to confirm to the network that the transaction complies with the rules. ZK proof runs through the entire upgrade route of Ethereum, and privacy transformation is also an important part of it.

According to "Strawmap", the privacy infrastructure is expected to be implemented in the Hegotá hard fork at the earliest. The next stage of upgrade will transform the transaction memory pool and encrypt the content of the transaction before it is put on the chain. Among the five goals, privacy-related planning details are the vaguest, and are highly affected by the regulatory environment and have the highest uncertainty. Even so, Ethereum is incorporating L1 native privacy into its official roadmap for the first time, which is a significant shift in itself.

Conclusion: Ethereum four years later

A concise summary of the five North Star goals is as follows:

• Fast L1: The final transaction confirmation time is shortened from 15 minutes to a few seconds, and the block generation interval is reduced from 12 seconds to 4 seconds;

• 1 billion Gas L1: ZK proves to replace the repeated execution mechanism, L1 can process 1 billion Gas per second, and the throughput is increased by about 200 times;

• Trillion-level Gas L2: L2 data carrying capacity has been expanded to 1GB per second, supporting a large number of Rollup parallel operations;

• Anti-quantum L1: The signature system switches to hash cryptography to calmly cope with the impact of quantum computing;

• Privacy native L1: Hide transaction information on the premise of proving transaction compliance, becoming a standard function of Ethereum.

The main body promoting the implementation of the roadmap is also changing. The Ethereum Foundation has recently laid off about 20% of its employees, its functions have gradually shrunk, and a large number of emerging institutions have filled the ecological void. In June 2026, Ethlabs was officially established. This non-profit research and development institution was supported by the Ethereum ecological enterprise and Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin; a week later, Ethereum Institutional, founded by members of the foundation's original corporate team, came out. Ethereum is evolving towards a more pure open source system, with small foundations joining forces with many independent institutions to promote development.

Of course, there is no guarantee that all plans will be implemented as scheduled. "Strawmap" is just a draft that is continuously revised, not a finalized roadmap. The ensuing Glamsterdam hard fork has been postponed from the first half of 2026 to the second half. Development progress may be delayed, and encryption algorithms require longer security audits. The features included in each round of hard forks will continue to be adjusted as researchers discuss with the community.

No matter what the final implementation form is, Ethereum will still be the most neutral and trustless general computing network in the world. "Strawmap" has clearly set a goal: to become faster, with stronger carrying capacity, and with higher security while retaining its core positioning.