Ethereum's Hegota Upgrade May Be Its Last 'Normal' Fork

Ethereum's long-term vision is to evolve beyond a traditional blockchain into what co-founder Vitalik Buterin calls a 'cryptographic world computer', according to his September 27 post titled 'The cryptographic world computer'. This shift will mark the end of an era, as next year's Hegota upgrade is likely to be Ethereum's last 'normal' fork.

The upgrade will introduce recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, optimized consensus, and quantum-safe cryptography. Transaction finality could shrink from roughly 200 seconds to 8-32 seconds, and block production would involve multiple parties through a mechanism called FOCIL.

Buterin argues that the next-generation Ethereum is becoming a hybrid of Satoshi Nakamoto's core ideas and cryptographic tools developed over fifty years of academic research. The roadmap gives no specific dates, and much of the work remains in research or early implementation.