Ethereum developers have announced the release of the Pectra update. The next network upgrade is planned for the first quarter of 2025.
The decision on the timing of the Ethereum update was made during an online conference. It reportedly includes a number of important proposals to improve the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) object format.
Pectra will be the next stage in the development of Ethereum after the successful hard forks of London, Berlin and Shanghai. The last major network update was Dencun, implemented in March 2024.
Pectra contains 11 suggestions for improving the EVM code. The developers also plan to deploy EIP-7251, aimed at “increasing the most effective balance.” With this change, the staking limit for validators will increase from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH.
In addition, it is planned to replace the EIP-3074 account abstraction proposal with a more advanced solution - EIP-7702, presented by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
The improvement will allow account addresses to function as smart contract wallets during transactions. This greatly simplifies the user experience and increases security, the developers noted.
The Pectra architecture consists of two main components - Prague at the execution level and Electra at the consensus level. They are aimed at optimizing transaction processing and consensus mechanisms in the network, ensuring more efficient and reliable operation of the blockchain.
Note that the Ethereum token has grown by 4% over the last 24 hours. At the time of publication, it is trading above $3,900, according to TradingView:
