#Ethereum Pectra Upgrade#  Pectra, one of Ethereum's biggest updates, has been activated on the main network.

Pectra, Ethereum's most comprehensive protocol upgrade after the Merge update in 2022, has been activated on the main network as of May 7, 2025. Pectra, which officially came to life with epoch 364032, which started at 10:05 UTC (13:05 TSI) in the morning, is the hard fork with the largest number of updates in Ethereum history, as it includes a total of 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs).
The Pectra update aims to achieve three main goals for the Ethereum network: increasing network efficiency, improving user experience, and laying the groundwork for future upgrades. In this context, it includes critical technical changes such as account abstraction, higher validator limits, and increased data processing capacity. Pectra aims to offer higher data efficiency in terms of Layer-2 solutions by improving the proto-danksharding mechanism brought by the Dencun upgrade.
Success after a challenging testnet process
The Pectra upgrade, initially planned for March 2025, was postponed due to testnet completion issues and a minor bug. Despite all these technical hurdles, the development teams successfully implemented a testnet on the Hoodi testnet in March, and then the main developer call on April 3 set a final date of May 7.
This process once again demonstrated how vital test environments are before major upgrades to the Ethereum network. While the validator configuration errors on Holesky underlined that the consensus algorithm could cause significant problems, the minor bug on Sepolia also showed that the core teams are highly prepared for fault tolerance.
Wallets turn into smart contracts with Account Abstraction (EIP-7702)
One of the most striking parts of the update, EIP-7702, is a proposal directly contributed by Vitalik Buterin, which allows user wallets to temporarily act as smart contracts. This way, users can have third parties pay their gas fees, perform more effective dApp interactions at lower costs by combining transactions, and benefit from new security models.
This feature enables permission systems, delegation features, and advanced wallet automations that will radically change the user experience. In addition, user-friendly methods such as social recovery and the recovery of lost private keys through trusted individuals can be supported. EIP-7702 aims to form the technical basis for the transition to a Web2-like user interface.
High balance makes validator operation (EIP-7251) easier
EIP-7251 increases the individual validator balance limit on the Ethereum network from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. Traditionally, users who wanted to stake more ETH had to create a separate validator for each 32 ETH. This innovation aims to increase operational efficiency, especially for large stake pools and institutional participants.
With the new regulation, individuals or institutions will be able to reduce software maintenance costs and resource consumption by combining multiple validators under a single high balance. However, it is stated that this development brings some concerns in terms of Ethereum's decentralized structure. Because actors with more ETH have more voting rights within the network, this can increase the risk of centralization.
Increased data capacity for Layer-2 (EIP-7691)
Building on the proto-danksharding structure added to the Ethereum network with the Dencun upgrade, EIP-7691 doubles the capacity of temporary data blocks called “blobs” per block. The previously set 3 targets and 6 maximum blobs are now 6 and 9, respectively. This allows Layer-2 solutions to process more data.
This progress will help Layer-2 rollups such as Arbitrum and Optimism reduce transaction fees by 10 to 100 times. The reduced transaction costs and increased data processing capacity allow dApps on Ethereum to become more scalable. Thus, the increase in total assets locked (TVL) in Layer-2 solutions will make network usage more economical.
EIP-7002 and EIP-6110, which shorten exit processes and increase security
EIP-7002, an important innovation for stakers, moves the validator exit and withdrawal processes to the execution layer by making them independent from the consensus layer. In this way, the need for hot keys to be constantly online is eliminated, and security risks are seriously reduced. In particular, institutional staking services will become more secure and automation-friendly thanks to this improvement.
On the other hand, thanks to EIP-6110, new validator records are directly integrated into blocks in the execution layer. This reduces the time for new validators to join the network to approximately 13 hours, increasing flexibility in network participation. Thus, the entry-exit processes for staking companies are both shorter and simpler.
New standards and infrastructure developments for data access
EIP-2935 enables decentralized historical data access by smart contracts by storing block hashes of the last 8,192 blocks (approximately 36 hours of transaction history) on-chain. This development is especially critical for oracle integrations, cross-layer data sharing, and historical verifications. This data is made easily accessible via a specific smart contract address.
In addition, EIP-7623 increases calldata costs to support Layer-2 systems, encouraging the use of blobs. EIP-2537 adds precompile functions for cryptographic verifications, reducing transaction costs. EIP-7685 and EIP-7549 create a more efficient chain structure by organizing validator transactions. Finally, EIP-7840 provides fee balancing for Layer-2 users.
Pectra paves the way for future Ethereum upgrades
The Pectra update is not limited to immediate efficiency increases, but also provides the technical infrastructure for larger updates planned in the future. In particular, the basic architecture on which another upgrade called Fusaka, which will include technologies such as Verkle Trees and PeerDAS, is based, has been prepared with Pectra.
In this context, Ethereum continues to evolve towards a structure where end users can establish more secure interactions at lower costs on a global scale, and developers can develop applications on more flexible and powerful infrastructures. This new phase, which started with Pectra, brings the network one step closer to long-term scalability.