The proposed sequence comprises Glamsterdam, Hegotá and the provisionally named I* and J* forks, according to Ethereum developer-tooling lead 0xRahul’s account of the presentation. Conference attendee Bob Summerwill identified J* as the proposed post-quantum endpoint.
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The earlier post-quantum team roadmap says L1 protocol upgrades could be completed by 2029, with full execution-layer migration taking additional years. Its published sequence places a validator key registry at I, signature-verification features at J, consensus proofs and leanVM at L, and post-quantum blob handling at M.
Drake’s proposed J* endpoint would therefore bring protocol-wide protection into an earlier fork. It is a goal, not an agreed activation schedule: the Strawmap describes itself as a work in progress rather than a prediction, and the post-quantum team says final upgrades are determined through Ethereum’s open governance processes.
From Roadmap to Running Code
A key component is leanVM, a minimal proof-generating virtual machine intended to make larger post-quantum signatures practical by aggregating their verification. Its public codebase includes implementations and benchmarks for validator signatures, user signatures and data availability.
The Foundation said leanVM had been “formally-verified end-to-end” in the preceding few days. However, the code repository still labels formal verification “in progress” and warns that leanVM is not yet production ready. The linked verification project also says no proof-system claim has landed and lists end-to-end theorems among its assurance goals.
For holders, a protocol upgrade and migration of an existing account remain different steps. As The Defiant previously reported, verifying alternative signatures in a smart contract does not automatically remove an existing account’s original signing key’s authority.
EIP-8141, a proposed native route to programmable transaction authorization and post-quantum signatures, remains labeled Draft. It would let account code define validation rather than requiring today’s elliptic-curve authentication.
