Vitalik Buterin says Hegotá could be Ethereum’s last ‘normal’ fork

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the planned 2027 Hegotá upgrade is likely to be the last "normal" fork before development pivots toward advanced cryptographic technologies such as recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, optimized consensus and quantum-safe cryptography. He described PeerDAS as the start of Ethereum's shift from a traditional blockchain model toward a broader "cryptographic world computer" that offloads computation while using onchain verification.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished 1 minute agoUpdated 1 minute ago0 views

Vitalik Buterin says Hegotá could be Ethereum’s last ‘normal’ fork

Why It Matters

If Ethereum moves computation and state offchain while preserving onchain verification, it could change how decentralized applications are designed and reduce the resources required by nodes. That architectural shift raises trade-offs about what critical records should remain onchain and how trust and verification are balanced in financial and other services.

Key Facts

Announcement: Vitalik Buterin said Hegotá could be Ethereum's last "normal" fork.
Timing: Hegotá is planned for 2027.
Trigger: Buterin cited PeerDAS as the beginning of a transition in Ethereum's architecture.
Technologies mentioned: recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, optimized consensus, quantum-safe cryptography.
PeerDAS function: Allows nodes to verify data availability by sampling portions of data instead of downloading everything.

Vitalik Buterin said the Hegotá upgrade, scheduled for 2027, will likely be the last Ethereum fork that looks familiar to users and developers from the network's early years. He framed the recent PeerDAS change as the start of a broader transformation away from a model where every node must download and re-execute all transactions.

PeerDAS lets nodes check data availability by sampling parts of the data rather than fetching entire blocks, and Buterin argued this capability points toward an architecture in which Ethereum becomes a "cryptographic world computer." In that model, more computation and state management would happen offchain, while the base layer focuses on verifying results, settling transactions and maintaining shared onchain state.

The shift would rely on several advanced technologies Buterin highlighted, including recursive STARKs, automated formal verification, optimized consensus mechanisms and quantum-resistant cryptography. Proponents say these tools could enable lighter nodes and reduce onchain computational loads by committing proofs of offchain computation back to Ethereum for verification.

Not all commentators agree on how far computation and state should be moved offchain. Ethereum researcher Barnabé Monnot said committing computation offchain and proving results onchain could substantially lower network work while preserving lighter nodes, but he argued that essential records should remain onchain so users can directly observe and interact with applications. A pseudonymous commentator known as Cryptographic suggested the architecture could broaden decentralized finance capabilities by allowing complex offchain computations—such as collateral analysis or matching—to be proved and settled onchain. Conversely, crypto lawyer Gabriel Shapiro questioned whether demand for proof-based systems will outstrip traditional trust-based arrangements that rely on reputation, regulation and legal enforcement.