Ethereum Foundation Announces "Long-Term Development Roadmap": 7 Hard Forks in 4 Years, Focused on 5 Major Goals

Ethereum Foundation recently unveiled a long-term development plan called “Strawmap,” aiming to complete at least 7 hard fork upgrades by the end of 2029 and achieve the “5 Major Long-Term Goals” within 4 years to improve Ethereum transaction speed and network throughput.

Introducing Strawmap, a strawman roadmap by EF Protocol.

Believe in something. Believe in an Ethereum strawmap.

Who is this for?

The document, available at strawmap.org, is intended for advanced readers. It is a dense and technical resource primarily for researchers,… pic.twitter.com/gIZh5I8Not

— Justin Drake (@drakefjustin) February 25, 2026

If this ambitious development blueprint can be completed on schedule, it will become the largest systemic evolution of Ethereum since the “Merge” in 2022.

“Strawmap” covers multiple potential adjustments to the Ethereum mainnet, focusing on incremental technical improvements to enhance network security and stability, preparing for a future with a larger user base and more applications. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin described it on social platform X as “a very important document,” symbolizing the development team’s overall plan for network scaling and technological evolution in the coming years.

A very important document. Let’s walk through this one “goal” at a time. We’ll start with fast slots and fast finality.

I expect that we’ll reduce slot time in an incremental fashion, e.g., I like the “sqrt(2) at a time” formula (12 -> 8 -> 6 -> 4 -> 3 -> 2, though the last two…

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) February 25, 2026

According to on-chain data platform DefiLlama, Ethereum remains the world’s largest smart contract blockchain, with total value locked (TVL) in decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem exceeding $56 billion. After the announcement, ETH prices rose temporarily, currently around $1,992, down about 3.4% for the day. Ethereum researcher Justin Drake stated that “Strawmap” will revolve around five “North Star” visions:

• Improve Layer 1 transaction confirmation speed to achieve second-level finality;
• Increase Layer 1 throughput to 10,000 TPS;
• Achieve about 10 million TPS on Layer 2;
• Introduce post-quantum cryptography;
• Support native privacy protection.

For users, the most noticeable change will be a significant leap in “Finality.” In Ethereum’s terms, when a transaction is marked as “finalized,” it means the network has reached consensus, and the transaction is officially effective and irreversible. Currently, this confirmation process takes about 16 minutes. To address this, “Strawmap” proposes optimizing with a consensus mechanism called “Minimmit,” reducing the wait time to 8 seconds. The core advantage of “Minimmit” is that it can reach consensus through a single round of voting, completely eliminating the time-consuming multi-round voting process.

Justin Drake said that the significance of this development blueprint lies in integrating multiple proposals into a unified vision, helping the community understand the future direction of Ethereum Layer 1 development from a more holistic perspective.