The Ethereum Foundation’s Protocol cluster has set a firm internal goal for Ethereum’s base layer to become quantum-resistant across execution, consensus, and data by December 2029. In a new priorities update, the group said it is planning against an intentionally aggressive assumption that a “Q-day” could arrive in 2030, arguing that earlier post-quantum readiness is the safer course for Ethereum’s long-term survival.
The deadline is described as non-negotiable at least until January 2027, when progress is due to be reviewed with outside experts. To reach that target, the Foundation is working from a roadmap that assumes hard forks arrive roughly every 7.2 months, beginning with Hegotá in late Q4 2026.
A hard deadline and an aggressive fork schedule
Under the plan outlined by the Protocol cluster, full post-quantum readiness is placed in L*, the fork scheduled five hard forks after Glamsterdam. The roadmap also includes an intermediate milestone called MV-PQ, or minimum viable post-quantum, described as a temporary safeguard that would allow Ethereum to keep operating with reduced guarantees until complete post-quantum readiness is delivered.
The Foundation said the ordering of later forks is not fully fixed. After J*, the current “Strawmap” may swap K* and L* depending on how research develops and how much delivery capacity is available. At the same time, work on multiple forks is expected to overlap, meaning research, testing, and ecosystem coordination will need to move in parallel rather than in a simple sequence.
Five research tracks shape the roadmap
The Protocol cluster grouped its medium-term work into five multi-fork research arcs: fast finality, post-quantum security, privacy, state, and zkEVM. Fast finality is aimed at separating finality from block production and is targeting a finality gadget, with prototypes expected for I*.
Post-quantum work spans all layers of Ethereum’s architecture. The Foundation said cryptographic agility is especially important on the execution side, while consensus cryptography will depend on hard forks and is expected to be hardened before rollout. Privacy work is set to begin as early as Hegotá with native private transactions on L1, then expand later to scaled privacy and encrypted mempools.
The state roadmap focuses on controlling state growth and improving access, including migration to a new trie and a more scalable state architecture, with major work beginning in I*. The zkEVM track is intended to push execution proofs toward becoming mandatory, while also supporting formal verification tooling and aligning with post-quantum changes. The Foundation added that some reordering could bring post-quantum attestations forward if that would speed overall PQ progress.
Hegotá becomes the first major test
The next fork, Hegotá, is presented as the first practical test of the new priorities. The Foundation said the fork is centered on a small set of consensus-layer and execution-layer changes that must ship safely together, specifically FOCIL and Frame transactions, with testing of how the components interact included as part of the fork process.
According to the post, there is little appetite to add more consensus-layer scope unless it directly advances post-quantum readiness. That framing suggests the Foundation wants near-term forks tightly constrained around features that support the 2029 commitment rather than a broader menu of upgrades.
Censorship resistance, privacy and security remain tied together
The update also framed Ethereum’s protocol choices around what it calls CROPS: censorship resistance, open source and freedom, privacy, and security. For censorship resistance, the Foundation said FOCIL expands transaction inclusion guarantees by using inclusion lists to define transactions that must be included, and that this design is meant to extend to future transaction types.
On privacy, the post pointed to EIP-8250, known as Keyed Nonces, and EIP-8272, called Recent Roots, as building blocks for privacy-friendly transactions that still retain inclusion guarantees. Those changes are intended to ship alongside Frames. For security, Frame transactions are described as a way to support programmable validation and execution, flexible gas payments, new signature schemes without requiring a hard fork for each scheme, and the secure retirement of vulnerable cryptography. The Foundation said related EIPs are also meant to strengthen accounts and limit malicious activity, but that their interaction with FOCIL will require careful testing.
Next steps and what comes after Glamsterdam
Beyond the immediate fork planning, the Foundation said protocol priorities are organized around work that only the Protocol layer can do, with Strawmap items meant to help Ethereum uphold that mandate. It also said formal verification will become a cross-cutting tool across the remaining research arcs after Glamsterdam.
A companion post is expected to explain Hegotá’s internal tier list and the reasoning behind each grade, and the Foundation said a Reddit AMA is planned to discuss the priorities and related questions. The first major checkpoint for the broader post-quantum plan remains January 2027, when the December 2029 deadline is scheduled to be reassessed with external experts.
Source: blog.ethereum.org