Vitalik Buterin shares top priorities for new 'Lean Ethereum' strawmap

Part of the Ethereum Foundation’s plan to make Ethereum more private and scalable is to introduce a new virtual machine, with leanISA and RISC-V among the top candidates.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has named quantum resistance, scalability and privacy as three of Ethereum’s top priorities under a new “Lean Ethereum” strawmap, which lays out the network’s technical direction for the remainder of the decade.

In a post to X on Saturday, Buterin said the collection of upgrades will roll out over the next three to four years, touching nearly every layer of Ethereum in a transformation he compared in scale to the September 2022 Merge, which shifted the network away from energy-intensive mining.

“Quantum safety has shifted up a LOT in priority,” he said, adding that finalizing a quantum-safe solution for blobs has “become urgent.” Enhancing privacy is another priority, Buterin said, stating that it has become a “first class goal.”