The Ethereum Foundation has outlined a long-term technical path through 2029.Â
The plan introduces a structured upgrade cycle for Ethereum’s base layer. It aligns performance, security, and privacy goals under one roadmap.Â
The proposal signals a coordinated push toward higher throughput and quantum resilience.
Six-month fork cadence anchors Ethereum strawmap
Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, introduced the “strawmap” as a coordination tool. He described it as a holistic view of L1 protocol upgrades.
The EF protocol team drafted the document during an internal workshop in January 2026. They later released it publicly to align contributors.
The Ethereum strawmap outlines seven forks running through 2029. It sets a six-month fork cadence for predictable protocol upgrades.
Each fork includes one consensus headliner and one execution headliner. Drake said this structure keeps Ethereum upgrades manageable.
The upcoming Glamsterdam fork will include ePBS and BALs as headliners. Fork names follow a star-based convention on the consensus layer.
Letters increment from Altair onward. Glamsterdam and Hegotá carry confirmed names. Other forks, labeled I* and J*, remain placeholders.
Drake said the strawmap extends beyond typical All Core Devs planning cycles. He noted the roadmap offers a unified technical perspective.
The document remains publicly accessible at strawmap.org. The EF protocol team plans quarterly updates as Ethereum evolves.
Gigagas throughput and post-Quantum security define 2029 Vision
The Ethereum Foundation identified five long-term goals in the strawmap.
Drake said the roadmap targets faster L1 finality measured in seconds. It also aims for 1 gigagas per second throughput through zkEVM integration.
The gigagas target equals roughly 10,000 transactions per second on L1. In parallel, the roadmap targets teragas throughput on Layer 2.
That goal translates to 1 gigabyte per second. It could support about 10 million transactions per second across L2 networks.
Data availability sampling underpins the high-throughput L2 strategy. Meanwhile, post-quantum cryptography addresses long-term Ethereum security.
The EF protocol team proposed hash-based cryptographic schemes. Drake said this track prepares Ethereum for future quantum computing risks.
Native privacy also forms a core pillar of the strawmap. The roadmap introduces shielded ETH transfers at the protocol level.
Drake framed privacy as a first-class Ethereum feature. He described the strawmap as a living document. He said it offers a structured path, not a formal prediction, for Ethereum’s infrastructure through 2029.