Ethereum outlines fork plan to reach Lean Ethereum by 2029

A sequence of roughly seven hard forks aims to rebuild Ethereum's consensus, execution and data layers without breaking existing apps Ethereum has a new long-range plan, and it runs through the end of the decade. Researchers working with the Ethereum Foundation, including Vitalik Buterin, have mapped out a path to what they call Lean Ethereum, targeted for completion by the end of 2029. The vehicle is a series of approximately seven hard forks. The plan is designed to keep backward compatibility for existing applications, so apps already running on Ethereum should not need to be rebuilt from scratch. Lean Ethereum is framed as the third major version of the protocol. The first was the original launch. The second arrived with the 2022 Merge, which replaced how the network reaches consensus. This third iteration goes broader. The roadmap targets upgrades to the three core layers of the network: consensus, execution and data. The fork sequence uses placeholder labels running from fork H* through fork L*. The explicit ordering of those upgrades was clarified on November 5, 2026. The final fork, L*, is the one that would complete the Lean Ethereum transition. Two named upgrades sit near...