Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin released an updated Lean Ethereum strawmap on July 4 that outlines a three-to-four-year overhaul of nearly every major part of the network.
The plan elevates quantum resistance and privacy as top priorities while aiming to make the blockchain faster, cheaper to run and more scalable. It calls for recursive STARKs to lighten verification, new state types for data storage and a shift beyond the current Ethereum Virtual Machine.
Reactions from researchers have been largely positive on the vision but critical of the timeline. Eli Ben-Sasson of StarkWare and former Ethereum Foundation researcher Dankrad Feist both said three to four years is too slow, with Feist suggesting the work could be completed in about one year.
The update follows research meetings in Berlin two weeks earlier and builds on an initial version released in July 2025. Ether rose more than 12 percent in the week after the announcement.
