The Ethereum Foundation’s newly released “Strawmap” reads, at first glance, like something only a protocol researcher could immediately understand. It’s dense, diagram-heavy, and packed with references to branches, zkEVM, and data availability sampling.
But behind the technical language is a much simpler story: Ethereum, the second-largest blockchain with a market capitalization of more than $200 billion, is trying to decide what kind of infrastructure it wants to be by the end of the decade.
The ‘Strawmap’, explicitly formulated as a draft, not an official plan, outlines Ethereum upgrades through 2029. It is non-binding, but indicates where some of the network’s most influential researchers believe the base layer should go next.
“The Strawmap is largely independent of Ethereum governance… it is a tool that helps inform R&D well in advance of Ethereum governance, potentially even years later,” Justin Drake, a prominent researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, told CoinDesk in an interview.
That direction has real consequences beyond core developers.
At the center of the document are five ambitions: near-instant transaction finality, dramatically higher throughput, built-in privacy, quantum-resistant cryptography, and tighter integration between Ethereum’s base layer and its layer 2 ecosystem.
Jargon-free, the goal is simple: make Ethereum faster, more scalable, more private, and durable enough to last a long time.
Today, Ethereum transactions are put into blocks quickly, but the point at which they are considered irreversible, known as finality, takes too long (about 16 minutes). For most casual users, that nuance is invisible. For exchanges, bridges and financial applications, it is essential.
In a thread responding to the roadmap, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin explained how that could change. “Today, finality takes 16 minutes,” he wrote, adding that the goal is to “decouple spaces and finality” and move toward a system where “the finality time of the end could be, for example, 6 to 16 seconds.”
Going from minutes to seconds changes the ease with which large amounts of value can move across the network.
The debate over layer 2
Earlier this month, Buterin argued that some of the assumptions behind the original Layer 2 roadmap “no longer make sense” in its previous form. Layer 2 networks were previously built into Ethereum’s roadmap to scale the network by processing transactions off the main blockchain and back into Ethereum, helping to reduce congestion and fees.
However, as layer 1 or base layer scaling has improved and some rollups have taken longer than expected to decentralize, the idea that Ethereum would outsource most of its scaling load entirely to L2s has become less clear.
Instead, Buterin suggested a more balanced future, one in which the base layer continues to strengthen while Layer 2 networks evolve into more specialized roles, whether for privacy, specific applications, or enhanced security models.
“Ultimately, we will have finality in seconds,” Drake told CoinDesk, arguing that faster settlement “will help bridge the L2s” and improve the user experience.
The Strawmap reflects that change. It doesn’t necessarily say that layers 2 will become extinct, but it also doesn’t treat layer 1 as frozen. Instead, it relies on a more robust base layer, along with enhancements that enable significantly greater layer 2 capacity, which could be seen as a two-way scaling strategy.
Privacy and quantum threat
Privacy marks another notable change in the draft new roadmap.
Ethereum’s transparency has long been seen as a positive, as every transaction is visible. But openness limits certain use cases. Strawmap envisions “protected” native transfers at the base layer, which would allow ETH to move without publicly exposing all transaction details. For individuals, that’s a matter of financial discretion. For companies, it could determine whether certain activities move up the chain.
And then there’s the long game: post-quantum cryptography. Quantum computing remains a developing field, but if Ethereum is intended to secure trillions of value for decades, its security assumptions cannot remain static. The Ethereum Foundation recently assembled a post-quantum team, and the roadmap only shows that it continues to double down on these efforts.
For developers and businesses, the roadmap provides directional clarity. Ethereum has often been criticized for moving slowly or perpetually delaying delivery deadlines. updates. By publishing a multi-year sketch, the researchers are indicating that the next phase of the network is not just about patching limitations.
However, Ethereum’s history is full of ambitious timelines that are overextended. Governance in a decentralized system ensures debate and review. Strawmap itself recognizes that it will evolve.
“For me, ultimately it’s about Ethereum becoming the Internet of value and ether, the asset, becoming money for the Internet,” Drake told CoinDesk.
Read more: Ethereum Foundation abandons most ambitious roadmap in years and aims for goal in seconds by 2029
