Ethereum Strawmap Sets Path To 10K TPS and Native Privacy

Background and Context

The Ethereum Foundation developed Strawmap following a protocol workshop held in January 2026. During this workshop, core contributors explored how to connect near-term upgrades with Ethereum’s broader long-term scalability, efficiency, and security goals. The Ethereum Foundation Protocol team, which includes approximately 100 contributors, then published the roadmap publicly to improve transparency and encourage community feedback.

Ethereum has released roadmap frameworks before. In 2022, Vitalik Buterin introduced a phased vision that included the Merge, Surge, Scourge, Verge, and Splurge. These phases guided major upgrades such as the Dencun upgrade in 2024, which improved Layer 2 scaling efficiency, and the Pectra and Fusaka upgrades in 2025, which enhanced staking, performance, and infrastructure.

However, Strawmap differs because it explicitly presents itself as a strawman proposal, meaning it reflects a proposed technical direction rather than finalized consensus. Historically, roadmap clarity has supported positive sentiment around Ethereum. For example, when developers announced detailed plans for the Pectra upgrade in early 2025, ETH saw strong price gains in the following weeks as confidence in Ethereum’s scaling strategy increased.

Key Highlights of the Strawmap

The Strawmap presents a structured timeline covering upgrades from 2025 through 2030 and beyond. It organizes changes across three core layers: the Consensus Layer, the Data Layer, and the Execution Layer. Each fork includes specific technical improvements that increase scalability, efficiency, and security.

The upcoming Glamsterdam fork represents one of the first milestones on this roadmap. It includes improvements such as enhanced proposer-builder separation, which improves block production efficiency, and execution-layer optimizations that strengthen performance.

Future forks labeled Hegotá, I*, J*, K*, L*, and M* introduce additional upgrades. These include faster slot times, which reduce confirmation delays, expanded blob capacity to improve Layer 2 scalability, Verkle trees to improve data storage efficiency, real-time zero-knowledge proving to support advanced applications, data availability sampling for scalability, and post-quantum cryptography for long-term security.

Future Implications

The Ethereum community has responded positively to Strawmap. Vitalik Buterin and other core developers have praised the roadmap’s clarity and long-term vision. In particular, the inclusion of native privacy and post-quantum security strengthens Ethereum’s future resilience.

For the broader market, Strawmap reinforces Ethereum’s position as a leading blockchain infrastructure platform. Higher throughput, faster finality, and stronger privacy enable Ethereum to support larger-scale financial systems, institutional adoption, and mainstream applications.