Vitalik Buterin Amends Ethereum Roadmap: Privacy and Quantum Security Take Priority

Vitalik Buterin publishes an updated version of the 2023 Ethereum roadmap. Compared to three years ago, the focus shifts considerably: quantum security and privacy are now at the top of the agenda, while a number of older ideas are being scrapped or replaced by better alternatives. Topics that did not exist in 2023 have also been added to the list.

Ethereum is available at OKX and Bybit.

In brief:

• Quantum security and privacy move up Ethereum’s priority list.
• New components such as native rollups, blob and gas futures and new state types were completely absent from the 2023 roadmap.
• STARKs and AI are becoming central building blocks in multiple layers of the protocol.

What changes compared to 2023

Buterin explains that the broad outlines of the original roadmap still correspond to the current plans, but that there are clear shifts on several points. Quantum security is receiving more urgency than previously anticipated, partly due to the rapid development of quantum computers. On the other hand, matters such as VDFs and a large part of the EVM improvements are being pushed back or removed from the list entirely.

Some technical solutions have also been replaced by better variants. For example, Verkle Trees are making way for a combined approach using a so-called Prefixed Binary Tree, and state expiry is being replaced by new state types, which Buterin describes as a fundamentally different paradigm for scalability.

Ethereum is currently at $1.874,25, a decline of 2.4% over the past 24 hours. The price movements coincide with a period of intensive technical development, with transactions at record highs while fees are historically low.

Completely new components on the roadmap

The most striking aspect of the update is the topics that did not appear at all in 2023. Native rollups were not feasible at the time because SNARK technology was not yet mature enough. Blob and gas futures did not yet exist as a concept. And the strong emphasis on privacy, including keyed nonces, aspects of FOCIL and a lean privacy pool, is completely new.

In addition, Buterin introduces zkzk frames, a technique that makes it possible to make simpler instruction sets such as leanISA or RISC-V available to users and developers alongside the EVM. In the longer term, the EVM could even be converted into an intermediate layer on top of such a simpler architecture, instead of remaining a fixed part of the base protocol.

STARKs and AI as a foundation

A common thread throughout the updated plans is the central role of STARKs and formal verification using AI. Buterin states that a specific primitive, the merging of verified dependencies, recurs in three places in the protocol: in the execution layer, the consensus layer and the data layer. That is only safe to do if the code is formally verified, and that in turn is only achievable with modern AI tools.

The broader scalability strategy is no longer to scale up all Ethereum activity simultaneously to the maximum, but to create specialised mechanisms with more limited properties that can process heavily used applications, such as token exchanges and privacy protocols, more efficiently. This ties in with earlier discussions about the direction of the network, such as the reconsideration of the inflation plans that took place earlier this year.