Vitalik Buterin outlines Ethereum’s next major rebuild timeline

Vitalik Buterin is mapping out Ethereum’s most ambitious multi-year overhaul yet, and quantum computing is the reason it’s moving faster than anyone expected. The Ethereum co-founder revealed that quantum safety has “shifted up a LOT in priority,” reshaping the network’s upgrade roadmap in ways that will define the next half-decade of development.

At the center of this plan sits the Hegota hard fork, targeted for the second half of 2026. Buterin indicated it will likely be the last upgrade before Ethereum enters what he calls its “Lean” phase, a streamlined era focused on simplification and resilience against threats that don’t fully exist yet but are getting uncomfortably close.

The Strawmap: seven forks in four years

The broader transformation Buterin is describing goes by the name “Strawmap.” It’s essentially a sketch of approximately seven anticipated hard forks spanning from 2026 through 2030.

The three pillars of this plan are quantum resistance, statelessness through Verkle Trees, and operational simplification.

The Hegota fork, sometimes referred to as H-star, follows the earlier Glamsterdam upgrade and is expected to land around late Q3 or Q4 of 2026. Two key proposals are driving the conversation around what Hegota will include.

First is EIP-8141, which introduces “frame transactions” designed to support native post-quantum signatures. Second is EIP-7805, known as FOCIL (Forced Inclusion Lists). This one targets censorship resistance by creating enforced inclusion lists that make it harder for block builders to selectively exclude transactions.

The quantum clock is ticking, sort of

Buterin places a 20% probability on a significant quantum breakthrough occurring before 2030. Most estimates for “Q-Day,” the hypothetical moment when quantum computers can break current cryptographic standards, land somewhere in the 2030s.

The Strawmap spreads the work across seven forks rather than attempting one massive overhaul, with Hegota laying the foundational groundwork through native post-quantum signature support.

What this means for investors

The market has not shown any immediate reaction to the Strawmap or Hegota proposals. The Verkle Trees component of the Strawmap also deserves attention. Statelessness, the ability for nodes to validate blocks without storing the entire state history, would dramatically lower the hardware requirements for running a node.