Vitalik claims that Ethereum has solved Crypto’s biggest problem.

“If an attacker creates evidence, they can spoof anything: mint tokens from nothing, rewstate, steal money,” the foundation warned in December, adding that performance breakthroughs cannot compromise cryptographic integrity.

George Kadianakis of the foundation's cryptography team stressed the importance of protecting architecture before they become moving targets.

“Once teams reach these targets and the zkVM architecture stabilizes, the standard verification work we've invested in can reach its full potential,” he wrote, noting that recent compact polynomial commitment schemes like WHIR and techniques like JaggedPCS can now achieve targeted security targets.

The emission timeline extends to 2030

Buterin outlined a four-year deployment schedule starting in 2026 with ZKEVM independent gas cap increases.

Between 2026 and 2028, developers will implement gas substitution, state structure changes, and shifting enforcement burdens to blobs to reliably support higher volumes of output.

In the year By 2027 to 2030, Buterin expects that ZKEVM verification will become the primary block verification method as gas constraints increase significantly beyond current capacity.

The roadmap also includes distributed block building as a third critical component. Buterin describes it as a “long-term ideal holy grail” in which entire blocks are never congregated in one place, reducing risks of centralized interference and improving geographic equity.

While celebrating technical progress, Buterin warned in a separate January 1st post that Ethereum should resist the urge to chase “fun trends” such as “dollars or political memecoins.”

“Ethereum needs to do more to achieve its goals,” he wrote, calling for apps that pass the “footpath test” to continue operating despite the loss of original developers and external disruptions, hypothetical scenarios like Cloudflare being attacked by state actors.