Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined sweeping changes to the network’s core consensus design following the release of the Ethereum Foundation’s new “straw sheet,” a long-term technical roadmap aimed at accelerating Layer 1 upgrades through the end of the decade.
Vitalik Buterin explains the vision of Ethereum Strawmap
In a detailed article, Buterin discussed one of the central objectives of the roadmap: a “fast L1”, which aims to gradually reduce slot times and significantly reduce finality. Ethereum’s current average finality sits at around 16 minutes.
Under the proposed trajectory, slot times could gradually decrease from 12 seconds to just 2 seconds, while finality could shrink to between 6 and 16 seconds using a one-round BFT-style algorithm known as Minimmit.
Buterin stressed that slot reductions would happen gradually, potentially following a “sqrt(2) at a time” formula, and only when safe. Key enablers include peer-to-peer network upgrades using erasure coding to improve the efficiency of block propagation, as well as architectural adjustments that reduce signature aggregation overhead by limiting the number of attestations per location.
The straw map, presented by Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, outlines five long-term “north stars”: fast L1, gigabytes L1 throughput, teragas L2 scaling, post-quantum security, and native privacy. It spans seven planned forks through 2029, with upgrades bundled across the consensus, data, and execution layers.
Buterin noted that many of the more invasive changes, including quantum-resistant hash-based signatures, could be packaged into a phased replacement of Ethereum’s consensus system, “ship of Theseus” style.
Although the document is described as a coordination tool rather than an official roadmap, it marks a step toward a faster user experience, stronger cryptography, and formal end-to-end verification.