TLDR:
- Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake proposed roughly seven protocol forks through 2029 on a six-month cadence.
- The EF protocol team targets 1 gigagas/sec L1 throughput via zkEVMs, equating to approximately 10,000 transactions per second.
- High-throughput L2 via data availability sampling aims to support up to 10 million transactions per second across Layer 2 networks.
- The strawmap introduces post-quantum cryptography and native privacy-preserving ETH transfers as long-term first-class protocol goals.
Ethereum Foundation researcher Justin Drake has released a protocol document called the “strawmap,” proposed by the EF protocol team.
The plan outlines roughly seven forks through 2029, operating on a cadence of one upgrade every six months. Five long-term goals anchor the roadmap: faster L1 finality, 1 gigagas/sec throughput, high-throughput L2, post-quantum cryptography, and native privacy-preserving ETH transfers.
Drake Proposes a Six-Month Fork Cadence Through the End of the Decade
Justin Drake, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, put forward the strawmap as a technical coordination tool for the EF protocol team.
The document covers seven planned forks stretching from the present through 2029. It was originally drafted during an internal EF workshop held in January 2026 before being shared publicly.
Drake introduced the document on social media, writing that the strawmap is “an invitation to view L1 protocol upgrades through a holistic lens.”
By placing all proposals on a single visual, the EF protocol team aimed to present a unified perspective on Ethereum’s long-term ambitions. The time horizon extends well beyond what All Core Devs typically covers in its near-term planning cycles.
The six-month fork cadence is central to how the EF protocol team structured the strawmap. Each fork is limited to one consensus headliner and one execution headliner to keep the pace manageable.
For example, the upcoming Glamsterdam fork features ePBS and BALs as its two headliners across the respective layers.
Fork names follow a star-based naming convention on the consensus layer, with letters incrementing from Altair onward.
Upcoming forks like Glamsterdam and Hegotá carry confirmed names, while others such as I* and J* remain placeholders.
The roadmap is publicly accessible at strawmap.org and will receive at least quarterly updates as the protocol evolves.
Five Long-Term Goals Shape the EF Protocol Team’s Technical Vision
The five north stars proposed by the EF protocol team define the technical direction through the end of the decade.
Drake described them clearly: faster L1 targeting finality in seconds, 1 gigagas/sec throughput via zkEVMs, high-throughput L2 via data availability sampling, post-quantum cryptography through hash-based schemes, and native privacy-preserving ETH transfers via shielded transactions.
Each goal connects directly to specific upgrade tracks mapped across the consensus, data, and execution layers. The gigagas target of 1 gigagas/sec translates to roughly 10,000 transactions per second on L1.
The teragas L2 goal targets 1 gigabyte per second, supporting approximately 10 million transactions per second across Layer 2 networks.
Post-quantum cryptography addresses the long-term durability of Ethereum’s security model. Hash-based cryptographic schemes are the proposed mechanism for protecting the network against future quantum computing threats. This upgrade track reflects the EF protocol team’s focus on securing Ethereum well beyond the current decade.
Native privacy through shielded ETH transfers rounds out the five goals. The strawmap treats privacy as a first-class protocol feature rather than an application-layer concern.
Drake described the document as a work-in-progress living document, not a formal prediction, but a structured path proposed by the EF protocol team for advancing Ethereum’s core infrastructure.
