The first few months of 2026 have forced the Ethereum community into a kind of introspection – looking beyond price, beyond technological upgrades, and into the question of what the network is really trying to become.
Even before this year, there had been a belief among builders and executives that Ethereum was on the verge of another growth phase – this time driven not by crypto-native users but by institutions and technology. As some argue, neobanks will quietly add millions of people by removing the complexity of wallets and gas fees. In this framing Ethereum would not need to win users directly. It will sit beneath the interface, powering a new financial stack that, on the surface, looks nothing like crypto.
This was a continuation of a long-standing thesis: that Ethereum’s success will come from invisibility.
That approach has been shaped by years of upgrades aimed at improving the user experience and reducing costs. Changes such as “proto-dunksharding” introduced in the Denkun upgrade have significantly reduced fees for the Layer 2 network by increasing data downloads for transactions, while ongoing improvements to the base layer have made transactions more efficient.
While the price of the network’s ether (ETH) token is determined by market forces, these upgrades, together, have helped move Ethereum closer to a model where users interact with applications without needing to understand the underlying infrastructure.
But refocusing on the original roadmap, that narrative began to change within a few weeks of the year.
L2 debate
Earlier this year, the network’s co-founder, Vitalik Buterin, delivered a sharp reality check to the broader ecosystem: “You are not scaling Ethereum.”
The comment led to what was at the time a largely celebratory conversation around the rollup. These types of networks, also known as layer-2 (L2) networks, process transactions from Ethereum and then bundle them back into the main chain to make it faster and cheaper. Layer-2 networks have exploded over the past few years, transaction fees have fallen, and activity has spread – but the deeper question was whether any of this equated to consistent scaling.
Buterin’s argument went further than a general criticism of progress. In his view, many of today’s Layer 2 designs are moving away from Ethereum’s original model: relying on centralized components and siled environments that do not fully achieve the guarantees of the base chain. The concern was not that L2s exist, but rather that in their current form, they were unable to provide the kind of scaling that Ethereum wanted to achieve.
His criticism highlighted growing unease.
Fragmentation in L2, inconsistent security assumptions, and reliance on centralized components began to look less like temporary trade-offs and more like structural risks. In trying to move outward, Ethereum risked losing the assets that made it valuable in the first place – its strong security, decentralization, and role as a shared, neutral settlement layer where applications and liquidity can seamlessly interoperate.
For their part, L2 teams didn’t so much push back as recalibrate. Some acknowledged the criticism and looked toward a future where rollups differentiate through specializations: privacy, consumer apps, or unique execution environments, rather than simply acting as cheap Ethereum. Others defended their role more strongly, arguing that high-throughput environments are still necessary.
Meanwhile, Ethereum’s base layer has made incremental progress in its own right. Recent upgrades, such as December’s Fusaaka hard fork, increased data capacity and efficiency on the main network, allowing more transactions to be processed while reducing costs. However the increase in transactions recently came under scrutiny, with some calling it an ‘address poisoning’ scam.
What this tense episode established for Ethereum is that the path forward requires a delicate balance between structural upgrades to the base layer and a new breed of specialized rollups that can grow the ecosystem without breaking its fundamental security.
According to 21Shares, this could also lead to integration between Layer 2 networks. “The coming year is likely to mark Ethereum’s L2 consolidation: a thinner, more flexible layer supported by an ETH-aligned, exchange-backed, and high-performance network,” the firm said in a research report.
quantum threat
At the same time, another issue – long discussed but rarely urgent – suddenly moved up the priority list: quantum computing.
The Ethereum Foundation signaled a change in stance by pushing efforts such as ‘LeanVM’ and post-quantum signature schemes. What was once considered a distant, almost academic concern is now being transformed into near-term planning.
The implication was hard to ignore: the network was now building not just for the next cycle, but also for threats that could fundamentally break its cryptographic assumptions. The foundation has indicated that it is taking that risk seriously, setting up dedicated research efforts focused specifically on post-quantum security.
Vitalik Buterin also outlined a roadmap to protect blockchains from long-term risks posed by quantum computers
internal shuffle
If scaling exposed the cracks in Ethereum’s present, quantum risk casts a shadow over its future, and it seems the network is taking the threat seriously.
Then changes came from within.
Tomasz Stanczak’s departure as co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation is more than a leadership shuffle. At a time when the network is facing a simultaneous technological, strategic and philosophical reassessment, even subtle changes at the top could signal a broader recalibration.
This step was also somewhat surprising.
The foundation is not known for sudden changes, and Stanczak stepped into the role about a year ago after Aya Miyaguchi’s long tenure. In an ecosystem that favors sustainability, the rapid turnover signals a deep internal recalibration, as the foundation reevaluates its priorities amid growing demands for Ethereum’s potential role in new fronts such as scaling, security and artificial intelligence (AI).
‘layer of trust’
And AI, a topic that has become impossible to ignore, began to shape a different direction of thinking for the network, not just for crypto but for every industry.
Buterin explained how Ethereum could play a fundamental role in the future of artificial intelligence. This vision extends beyond payments or DeFi to a world where Ethereum acts as a coordination layer for decentralized AI systems, enabling verifiable outputs, trust-minimized data sharing, and machine-to-machine economic activity.
That push didn’t emerge overnight.
Early last year, the foundation established a dedicated decentralized AI research unit (DAI) to explore how the network could support autonomous agents and machine-to-machine economies. What felt experimental at the time has become more intentional in 2026, with the Foundation rapidly framing Ethereum as a potential “trust layer” for AI: a system to verify outputs, coordinate agents, and anchor a rapidly growing ecosystem that, until now, has been largely controlled by centralized players.
All of this is an ambitious expansion of the scope, placing Ethereum at the intersection of two of today’s most consequential technologies.
But overall, the first three months of the year suggest that Ethereum no longer has the luxury of tackling these questions in isolation; Rather, they are gathering.
What emerges is that a network is being pulled in multiple directions, each with its own sense of urgency, and a balancing act that is becoming difficult to ignore. And unlike past cycles, where narratives could change as quickly as prices, the issues now feel deeper, less about momentum and more about structure.
These tensions are unlikely to be resolved any time soon and will continue to shape Ethereum’s trajectory in the coming months.
However, in the immediate term, the focus remains on enhancing the base layer, with the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade scheduled for this year expected to accelerate that effort. The upgrade will likely become a litmus test for the network’s ability to resolve issues that could successfully move Ethereum into a strong, quantum-secure “trust layer” capable of powering the global AI economy.
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