Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin recently revealed an ambitious technical roadmap. According to the plan, by 2026, Ethereum will achieve systematic breakthroughs in privacy and data protection.

Specifically, this upgrade covers multiple dimensions. At the infrastructure level, leveraging ZK-EVM and BAL technology to lower the barrier to full node participation, allowing more users to easily become validators. Regarding data authenticity, Helios will be used to verify the integrity of data returned by RPC. ORAM and PIR technologies address privacy query challenges—when requesting data from RPC, there is no need to expose the actual query content.

Improvements in user experience are equally noteworthy. Social recovery wallets combined with time lock mechanisms can effectively reduce the risk of funds loss due to private key loss. Privacy payments will be on par with regular transfers, meaning privacy no longer incurs additional costs. At the account abstraction layer, ERC-4337 and future native account abstraction schemes will further enhance censorship resistance, with the FOCIL protocol serving as a key supplement. Finally, on-chain application interfaces based on IPFS will reduce reliance on centralized servers, marking an important step on the path toward decentralization.