[Digital Today reporter Chi-gyu Hwang] Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin (비탈릭 부테린) set quantum resistance, scalability and privacy as top priorities in a new draft of 'Lean Ethereum'.

Cointelegraph reported on Saturday that the initiative lays out a technical direction through 2030, with related upgrades to roll out over the next 3 to 4 years.

Buterin said the overhaul is comparable in scale to the 'Merge' upgrade, which shifted Ethereum in September 2022 from energy-intensive proof of work to staking-based proof of stake.

He stressed that the priority of quantum resistance has risen sharply. He also set finalising a quantum-safe solution for blobs as an urgent task. Strengthening privacy was also elevated to a core goal.

He is also pushing to introduce a new virtual machine. Buterin proposed new virtual machines such as LeanISA or RISC-V as alternatives to support programmable privacy and better scalability.

The roadmap adjustment came alongside a restructuring of the Ethereum Foundation. The foundation streamlined its organisation last month and cut about 20 percent of its staff as part of budget savings.

Concerns about the timeline are also emerging. Dankrad Feist (단크라드 파이스트), a researcher involved with the payments-focused layer 1 Tempo blockchain, assessed the new plan positively but said 3 to 4 years is too slow. He argued that using artificial intelligence could allow developers to deliver upgrades within a year.