The next decade of Ethereum

Author: Zhixiong Pan Source: chainfeeds

The Ethereum Foundation officially launched a new technical blueprint called "Lean Ethereum" on its tenth anniversary (at the end of July 2025). The core goal of this blueprint is to create a more streamlined, secure, and efficient Ethereum base layer, providing a solid technical foundation for Ethereum's development over the next decade and beyond.

What is Lean Ethereum?

Lean Ethereum was proposed by Justin Drake, a core researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. Its main idea is to achieve extreme performance improvements (millions of transactions per second) and quantum-level security for the Ethereum network by significantly simplifying protocol design and introducing quantum-resistant cryptographic techniques.

The core of the Lean Ethereum Blueprint is primarily reflected in the following two key project groups.

1. Lean Consensus (formerly Beam Chain)

Lean Consensus is the core and foundation of Lean Ethereum. Originally named 'Beam Chain', it was publicly announced during Devcon in 2024 (even considered as Eth 3.0), and later officially renamed 'Lean Consensus'. This project team focuses on a new design for the Ethereum consensus layer (Beacon Chain).

The main goals of Lean consensus include:

• Fast Confirmation: Shorten the block production time to about 4 seconds, achieving finality in approximately 12 seconds.
• Decentralization Enhancement: The minimum staking amount for validators has been reduced from 32 ETH to 1 ETH, significantly lowering the threshold for participation in consensus.
• Post-Quantum Security: Introduces hash-based signature technology to ensure that the consensus layer is resistant to future threats from quantum computing.
• On-chain Lightweight Verification: Utilizing SNARK technology for efficient verification of chain state, allowing any node to easily verify the integrity of the blockchain.
• Network Optimization: Optimizing network communication efficiency through a new P2P protocol (such as Gossipsub v2.0).
• Aggregation Proof Technology: Uses hash aggregation signatures to reduce network communication load and improve verification efficiency.

Lean Consensus is currently the flagship project of Lean Ethereum, with dedicated public meetings (Lean Calls) held every few weeks for in-depth technical updates and discussions. Core team members include Justin Drake, Dmitry Khovratovich, Will Corcoran, among others.

2. PQ (Post-Quantum Cryptography) Project Team

The PQ project team focuses on the upgrade and iteration of cryptography, with the goal of ensuring that Ethereum remains secure and reliable in the era of quantum computers. The main research directions of the PQ project team include:

• Hash Signature Algorithm: Replace the existing elliptic curve signature algorithm with a quantum-resistant hash signature scheme.
• Data Commitment Optimization: Transitioning from existing KZG polynomial commitments to hash commitments to enhance data security on the chain.
• Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP): Develop efficient SNARK/STARK circuits suitable for hash algorithms for state verification.
• Formal Verification: Conduct rigorous formal verification of the new password scheme to ensure the correctness of implementation and protocol design.

The core members of the PQ project team include Will Corcoran, Antonio Sanso, George Kadianakis, etc., and are promoted jointly by internal researchers from the Ethereum Foundation and external academic experts.

3. Lean Data and Lean Execution

In addition to the two core project teams mentioned above, Lean Ethereum also has two important project teams that do not operate independently: Lean Data and Lean Execution.

Lean Data

Lean Data focuses on enhancing the performance of the data availability layer, for example, by significantly improving the data throughput capacity on the Ethereum chain through the following methods:

• PeerDAS v1 and v2: Implement distributed data availability sampling, significantly improving data throughput.
• BPO (Blob Parameter Only) Mechanism: Automatically adjusts data storage parameters to gradually increase on-chain data capacity.
• FullDAS and mempool sharding: Further optimize data broadcasting and storage efficiency.

The ultimate goal of Lean data is to achieve Teragas-level data transmission to support the future demand for a large number of Layer 2 applications.

Lean Execution (also known as EVM 2.0)

Lean Execution aims to completely reconstruct the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), with the goal of achieving a streamlined, efficient, and zero-knowledge proof-friendly new execution environment. The main research directions include:

• zkVM based on RISC-V architecture: simplified instruction set, reduced proof overhead.
• Real-time Zero-Knowledge Proofs: Enhance proof generation speed to make real-time verification possible.
• Compatibility and Migration Path: Gradually introduce the new zkVM to run in parallel with the existing EVM, ultimately transitioning completely.
• Hardware Acceleration Support: Explore zero-knowledge proof acceleration solutions based on dedicated ASIC or FPGA.

The current progress of Lean data and Lean execution is mainly synchronized through the official blog of the Ethereum Foundation, protocol updates, and the Ethereum developer community (Ethereum Magicians).

The Long-term Significance of Lean Ethereum

The Lean Ethereum Plan is a significant layout by the Ethereum Foundation for the development roadmap over the next decade. Lean Consensus, as a core pillar, ensures the chain's security and scalability through more efficient protocol design; the PQ project builds a defense against quantum computing threats; Lean Data and Lean Execution respectively enhance on-chain data throughput and smart contract execution performance.

This streamlined, efficient, and secure new architecture aims to transform the Ethereum mainnet into a globally trusted infrastructure that can sustain for decades or even centuries, supporting a vast future ecosystem of decentralized applications.

How to participate?

The Ethereum Foundation broadly invites community members, researchers, and developers to participate through channels such as the Lean Ethereum official website, GitHub repository, public Lean Calls, and the Ethereum Magicians community.