Vitalik Buterin: Hegota Will Be Ethereum's Last 'Normal' Fork
In a September 27 blog essay, Ethereum's co-founder said work after next year's upgrade will center on advanced cryptography and quantum-safe designs.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expects the network's Hegota upgrade, slated for next year, to be its final conventional hard fork. In his view, the work that follows will move away from the familiar fork model and toward advanced cryptography and quantum-safe designs.
Buterin laid out the position in an essay published on his personal blog on September 27. The piece framed the argument around a comparison of Ethereum in 2015, 2025 and 2030.
A shift in what upgrades look like
According to the essay, the upgrades arriving after Hegota would not be routine forks of the kind Ethereum has shipped over the past decade. Instead, Buterin pointed to cryptographic research and designs intended to withstand quantum computing as the focus of that later work.
Ethereum's upgrade names and timelines are coordinated by its developers and can change before deployment, so the schedule and scope of the post-Hegota work remain subject to that process.