Vitalik Buterin reveals Ethereum's major shift to privacy and quantum security

Vitalik Buterin elevates Ethereum privacy and quantum security to the core of the roadmap

Vitalik Buterin has incorporated privacy and quantum security into the primary development goals of the Ethereum roadmap, further broadening technology priorities in addition to the original direction of scalability, efficiency and protocol simplification. Lean Ethereum is expected to reshape the core components of the network, while solutions such as SNARKs, artificial intelligence, RISC-V and leISA will play a more important role in the development plan. The reorganization of the Ethereum Foundation also focuses on anti-censorship, privacy, security and open source development, while organizations such as EthLabs and EthSystems have also contributed important research results.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has listed privacy and quantum security as the main priorities for the long-term development of the network. This expansion strategy introduces a number of areas that do not appear in the 2023 roadmap. According to Buterin's article published on the X platform, Ethereum's latest "Strawmap" contains some priorities that were not considered core a few years ago. The Strawmap provides a working reference for protocol development through 2029 and was updated on August 4.

Buterin's 2023 roadmap revolves development work around six phases: "The Merge","Surge","Scourge","Verge","Purge" and "Splurge". However, advances in cryptographic technology and changing security requirements have expanded Ethereum's technical ambitions.

Privacy is one of the most important directions added this time. Developers now believe that providing greater protection for balances and trading activity is an important need for Ethereum. Privacy pools can hide financial activity while supporting compliance requirements, while wormhole designs allow transfers of money without revealing the full transaction history. The FOCIL mechanism has also become more important in Ethereum's anti-censorship strategy, with parts of the mechanism expected to play a key role in the planned Hegota hard fork.

The importance of quantum security and Lean Ethereum has increased significantly

As developers begin to prepare the network for future cryptographic threats, quantum resistance has further increased among Ethereum development priorities. Buterin hopes that Ethereum can achieve quantum security while maintaining privacy, security, scalability and censorship resistance. At the same time, Lean Ethereum may eventually reshape multiple basic components of blockchain. Buterin previously described the plan as the third major iteration of Ethereum. It is worth noting that developers may eventually replace or significantly redesign the Ethereum virtual machine, and alternative computing architectures being considered include RISC-V and leanISA.

Due to significant advances in cryptography tools, the importance of zero-knowledge technology has also increased significantly. According to Buterin, SNARKs have not yet matured enough to support complex extension solutions such as native Rollup. In addition, modern artificial intelligence technology can also help developers formally verify Ethereum. Blob and gas futures have also been included in the development plan, although they do not appear in the 2023 roadmap.

The Ethereum Foundation reorganizes around new priorities

The internal adjustments of the Ethereum Foundation also reflect the development strategy of the network after expansion. In June this year, the organization laid off 20% of its employees and reorganized around five core clusters. These clusters support their CROPs tasks, covering censorship resistance, open source development, privacy and security. In addition, new organizations have emerged to strengthen Ethereum's R & D efforts. EthLabs will conduct non-profit research and development work with the Ethereum Foundation, while EthSystems will focus on developing organization-level privacy technologies after leaving the foundation's original "Institutional Privacy Task Force".

Strawmap remains a flexible development guide rather than a fixed upgrade schedule. Buterin's comparison shows that privacy, quantum resistance, advanced cryptography and simpler architecture are increasingly becoming important pillars of Ethereum's long-term development direction.