The early months of 2026 have forced the Ethereum community into a kind of soul-searching, one that goes beyond price, beyond technical upgrades, and into the question of what the network is actually trying to be.
Even before this year, builders and executives had a sense that Ethereum was about to enter another phase of growth – this time, driven not by native crypto users, but by institutions and technology. Neobanks, as some have argued, would quietly onboard millions of people by eliminating the complexity of wallets and gas fees. Ethereum, in this framework, would not need to directly gain users. It would sit beneath the interface, powering a new financial stack that, at first glance, looked nothing like crypto.
It was a continuation of a long-standing thesis: that Ethereum’s success comes from invisibility.
This vision was shaped in part by years of previous upgrades aimed at improving user experience and reducing costs. Changes such as “proto-danksharding”, introduced in the Dencun upgrade, have significantly reduced fees for Layer 2 networks by increasing data uploads for transactions, while continued improvements to the base layer have made transactions more efficient.
Although the price of the network’s ether token (ETH) has been determined by market forces, these upgrades have, together, helped move Ethereum closer to a model in which users interact with applications without needing to understand the underlying infrastructure.
But that narrative began to change a few weeks into the year, refocusing on the main roadmap.
The L2 debate
Earlier this year, the network’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin reminded the ecosystem at large of reality: “You are not scaling Ethereum. »
The comment cut short what had until then been a largely celebratory conversation around rollups. These types of networks, also called layer 2 (L2) networks, process transactions off of Ethereum and then aggregate them on the main chain to make them faster and cheaper. Layer 2 networks have exploded in recent years, transaction fees have fallen, and activity has expanded, but the deeper question was whether all this amounted to consistent scaling.
Buterin’s argument went further than a general critique of progress. Many current Layer 2 designs, he says, stray from Ethereum’s core model: relying on centralized components and siled environments that don’t fully inherit the guarantees of the base chain. The problem was not that L2s exist, but that in their current form they may not offer the kind of scaling that Ethereum was intended to achieve.
His criticism highlights a growing unease.
Fragmentation between L2s, inconsistent security assumptions, and reliance on centralized components began to look less like temporary compromises and more like structural risks. Ethereum, in trying to expand outward, risked losing the very properties that made it valuable in the first place: its strong security, its decentralization, and its role as a shared, neutral settlement layer where applications and liquidity can interact seamlessly.
The L2 teams, for their part, have not so much retreated as recalibrated. Some recognized the criticism and looked toward a future where rollups would differentiate themselves through specialization: privacy, consumer applications, or unique execution environments, rather than simply acting like cheaper Ethereum. Others have defended their role more forcefully, arguing that high-speed environments remain essential.
The Ethereum base layer, meanwhile, has made incremental progress itself. Recent upgrades, such as the Fusaka hard fork in December, have increased data capacity and efficiency on the mainnet, allowing more transactions to be processed while reducing costs. Although this increase in transactions has recently come under scrutiny, with some calling them “address poisoning” scams.
What this tense episode has established for Ethereum is that the path forward requires a delicate balance between structural upgrades to the base layer and a new generation of specialized stacks capable of growing the ecosystem without breaking its fundamental security.
This could also lead to consolidation of Layer 2 networks, according to 21shares. “The coming year will likely mark Ethereum’s L2 consolidation: a lighter, more resilient layer anchored by ETH-aligned, exchange-backed, high-performance networks,” the company said in a research report.
The quantum threat
At the same time, another topic, long discussed but rarely urgent, suddenly appeared on the priority list: quantum computing.
The Ethereum Foundation has signaled a shift in posture, bolstering efforts such as “LeanVM” and post-quantum signature systems. What was once treated as a distant, almost academic concern is now integrated into short-term planning.
The implication was hard to ignore: The network is no longer just building for the next cycle, but for threats that could fundamentally shatter its cryptographic assumptions. The foundation said it is taking this risk seriously, establishing dedicated research efforts specifically focused on post-quantum security.
Vitalik Buterin also presented a roadmap to protect blockchain from the long-term risks posed by quantum computers.
The internal reshuffle
If scaling revealed cracks in Ethereum’s present, quantum risk cast a shadow over its future, and it seemed the network was taking the threat seriously.
Then came changes from within.
The departure of Tomasz Stańczak as co-executive director of the Ethereum Foundation marked more than a management shakeup. As the network faces both technical, strategic, and philosophical reassessments, even subtle changes at the top can signal a broader recalibration.
This decision also came as a surprise.
The foundation is not known for abrupt changes, and Stańczak had only taken office about a year earlier, after Aya Miyaguchi’s long-standing tenure. In an ecosystem that tends to favor continuity, the rapid change suggests that a deeper internal recalibration is underway, as the foundation reevaluates its priorities in the face of growing demands for scalability, security, and Ethereum’s potential role in new frontiers such as artificial intelligence (AI).
“Trust Layer”
And AI, a topic that has become impossible to ignore, not just for crypto but for all industries, has begun to shape a distinct line of thinking for the network.
Buterin explained how Ethereum could play a fundamental role in the future of artificial intelligence. The vision extends beyond payments or DeFi: to a world where Ethereum acts as a coordination layer for decentralized AI systems, enabling verifiable results, trust-minimized data sharing, and machine-to-machine economic activity.
This surge didn’t happen overnight.
Early last year, the foundation created a decentralized AI (dAI) research unit exploring how the network could support autonomous agents and machine-to-machine economies. What seemed experimental at the time has since accelerated into something more deliberate in 2026, with the foundation increasingly touting Ethereum as a potential “trust layer” for AI: a system for verifying results, coordinating agents, and anchoring a rapidly evolving ecosystem that, until now, has largely been controlled by centralized actors.
All of this amounts to an ambitious expansion of scope, placing Ethereum at the intersection of two of the most important technologies today.
But overall, the first three months of the year suggest that Ethereum no longer has the luxury of addressing these questions in isolation; rather, they converge.
What emerges is a web pulled in multiple directions, each with its own sense of urgency, and it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore a balancing act. And unlike previous cycles, where narratives could change as quickly as prices, the problems now seem deeper, less about dynamics than structure.
These tensions are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon and will continue to shape Ethereum’s trajectory in the months to come.
For the immediate future, however, the focus remains on the Base Layer Extension, Glamsterdam’s next upgrade, planned for this year, which is expected to accelerate this effort. The upgrade will likely become a litmus test for the network’s ability to solve problems that can successfully transform Ethereum into a robust, quantum-secure “trust layer” capable of anchoring the global AI economy.
Read more: Ethereum ‘Glamsterdam’ Upgrade Aims to Improve MEV Equity
