Ethereum Roadmap Eyes 2029 Scaling
Post-Fusaka upgrades are showing results with L2 fees slashed 15%+ (Arbitrum dropping from $0.60 to $0.012) and PeerDAS enabling blob capacity increases from 6 to 14 quickly, with a path to 128. YouTube analysis suggests ETH could see significant upside by 2026 driven by network upgrades and institutional adoption, though both BTC and ETH remain roughly 50% below record highs.
A newly unveiled draft roadmap, dubbed the "Strawmap," sketches out an ambitious future for Ethereum, targeting 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on the main blockchain by 2029. This long-term plan involves up to seven hard forks and aims to drastically cut transaction finality time from approximately 16 minutes to as little as 6 to 16 seconds. The recent Fusaka upgrade is a key step, introducing PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling) to significantly boost scaling. This technology allows network nodes to verify data by sampling small chunks rather than downloading everything, enabling an 8x increase in data space for Layer 2 rollups while reducing the hardware burden on node operators. These upgrades directly impact Layer 2 transaction costs. The Dencun upgrade, which introduced "blobs" for data storage, and the subsequent Fusaka upgrade have caused fees on networks like Starknet, Optimism, and Base to plummet by as much as 99%. Post-Fusaka, transaction costs on L2s like Arbitrum and Optimism are reported to be between $0.005 and $0.02. Major financial institutions are increasing their use of the network for tokenized assets. BlackRock and JPMorgan have expanded their tokenized treasury and bond offerings on Ethereum. The volume of these "Real World Assets" (RWA) on the network saw a 45% increase in the first quarter of 2026. This institutional momentum is reflected in the total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum-based smart contracts, which surpassed $110 billion as of March 2026. Projections suggest the stablecoin market, over half of which operates on Ethereum, could grow to $500 billion by the end of 2026. While network activity grows, Ethereum's price is recovering from a significant downturn. The token's all-time high was around $4,800 in November 2021. For comparison, Bitcoin's record high is more than $124,000, and both assets have traded at significant discounts from their peaks. Looking ahead, developers are already planning the "Glamsterdam" upgrade. This next phase is expected to introduce parallel transaction processing, a feature designed to further increase throughput and efficiency on the network.
