Vitalik Buterin Says AI Tools Accelerate Ethereum Protocol Roadmap by Decades

Artificial intelligence tools are accelerating research and coding for Ethereum's protocol roadmap, potentially preventing technical timelines from stretching to 2040 or 2050, according to co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Speaking at the Network State Conference 2026 in Singapore, Buterin highlighted that AI-driven development is assisting with complex cryptography, recursive STARKs, and formal verification in Lean 4. The network is targeting the Hegota upgrade around 2027 as its final normal hard fork before shifting heavily toward AI-assisted frameworks. However, Buterin cautioned that automated AI tools also carry dual-edged security and transactional risks.