The Ethereum Foundation recently released the Strawmap, and this is actually one of the most detailed roadmaps they've ever published. Justin Drake leads this, and the document basically outlines what will happen with Ethereum until 2029. They are planning around seven major forks, and honestly, this shows they are serious about providing a more predictable schedule.

What’s interesting is their strategic shift. In the past, we heard about Merge, Surge, Scourge—now the focus is more specifically on clear technical metrics. They want to achieve much higher throughput, better privacy, and security resilient against future threats.

There are two major targets worth noting here. The first is Gigagas—aiming to reach around one billion gas per second on Layer 1 mainnet. This is not a random number. They plan to integrate zkEVM directly into the protocol. For those unfamiliar, the Ethereum Virtual Machine is currently a bottleneck for scalability—by adding real-time zero-knowledge proofs into the Ethereum Virtual Machine, they can verify complex computations much faster. The result? Mainnet could handle around 10,000 transactions per second without requiring specialized hardware for node operators.

Then there’s Teragas, which is even more ambitious. They are building an ecosystem where Layer 2 solutions can collectively process 10 million TPS. How? Data Availability Sampling. Instead of L2s having to download all data, they can verify only a sample of the necessary data. For end users, this means transaction costs are nearly negligible and speeds comparable to traditional web applications.

One thing I appreciate about the Strawmap is that they’re not just focusing on speed. Privacy and security are also top priorities. They are working on transitioning to post-quantum cryptography—basically preparing the network for an era when quantum computers might be able to break the encryption we use today. Plus, they plan native L1 privacy, meaning users can perform protected ETH transfers directly on the protocol, not relying on third-party mixers.

The structure itself is quite organized. They are now committed to one fork every six months, not random and unpredictable upgrades like before. Each fork will focus on several main headlines—usually one improvement in the consensus layer and one in the execution layer. The first forks, like Glamsterdam and Hegotá, are expected to lay the foundation for these more ambitious goals.

An important thing to remember is that the Ethereum Foundation itself describes this as a 'living document'—not a rigid set of predictions. There’s room for community feedback and breakthrough research. But a clear roadmap like this definitely provides confidence to developers and stakeholders about the long-term direction.

Overall, if they can deliver on this timeline, Ethereum could truly transform into a globally scalable infrastructure. From a user perspective, this means decentralized applications that can compete with the speed and responsiveness of traditional web services. Definitely worth monitoring how the upcoming forks progress.