Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has dismissed the notion of allowing Ethereum to gradually fade away through fragmentation, as suggested by a community member. Instead, Buterin advocates for a "cypherpunk-pure, non-ugly Ethereum" that extends the current system with seamless interoperability. He outlined a plan to implement four major upgrades over the next five years, similar to the previous "Merge" upgrade. These upgrades include state tree optimization, Lean consensus, ZK-EVM verification, and VM changes, aimed at enhancing censorship resistance, ZK-friendliness, and simplicity.