Ethereum (ETH) developers embrace Vitalik Buterin's long-term vision but urge quicker execution

Ethereum's ambitious plan to reinvent itself over the next several years is getting an enthusiastic reception from many of the network's researchers, though several say the biggest challenge won't be deciding what to build, but how quickly it can happen.

Earlier last week, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an updated version of the "Lean Ethereum" strawmap, a long-term vision that would overhaul nearly every major part of the blockchain. The strawmap was originally published in February. Buterin's updated proposal calls for sweeping changes aimed at making Ethereum faster, cheaper to run, more private and resistant to future threats such as quantum computers.

While the roadmap is still years away from becoming reality, early reactions suggest many of Ethereum's leading developers agree with its direction.

Eli Ben-Sasson, co-founder of StarkWare, called the roadmap "many good things, a few unclear things, still a few problems."

He praised Ethereum's decision to put recursive STARKs, a cryptographic technique designed to make the network much easier to verify, at the center of its future, saying it marked a major shift from earlier years when much of the Ethereum community was skeptical of the technology.