Vitalik Buterin overlaid his 2023 Ethereum roadmap diagram onto the Ethereum Foundation's current strawmap on Monday, and the side-by-side comparison turned up a few things that simply weren't in the earlier plan. The most striking part, he said, is the set of items missing from the 2023 diagram in any form: privacy, defenses against quantum computers, and an execution-related item.
The gaps in the 2023 plan
The 2023 diagram was Buterin's own rendering of where Ethereum was headed. The strawmap the foundation is working from now covers more ground. Privacy is on it. Quantum resistance is on it. And there's an execution-related item that had no counterpart in the older version.
That's the point he flagged. Roadmaps are snapshots, and the 2023 one was drawn at a moment when the merge was done and the focus was on scaling. The new items reflect a different set of concerns.
Why the strawmap matters
The strawmap isn't a formal proposal. It's a working document — the foundation's live sketch of where the protocol is heading. Comparing it to a two-year-old diagram is a way to see what's actually changed, not just what's been announced.
Buterin's comparison puts the new items in plain view. Privacy and quantum defenses weren't on the 2023 map in any form. Their presence now signals a shift in what the foundation considers part of the core roadmap, not a side project.
The comparison is part of an ongoing planning process, not a finished proposal. The open question is whether the new items — privacy, quantum resistance, the execution work — get folded into the next formal roadmap or stay as strawman entries for now.
For now, the takeaway is simple: the 2023 roadmap and the current strawmap are not the same document, and the differences are exactly where Buterin pointed.
