Ethereum Pectra Upgrade: A Comprehensive Breakdown

Ethereum Pectra Upgrade

Ethereum Pectra upgrade is the latest milestone in the network’s ongoing evolution, combining two separate upgrades: Prague (focused on the execution layer) and Electra (enhancing the consensus layer). Together, these improvements shape the Pectra upgrade, designed to refine Ethereum’s scalability, efficiency, and usability.

The Road to Pectra: Following the Dencun Upgrade

Pectra follows the Dencun upgrade, which took place in March 2024 and merged the Deneb and Cancun upgrades. Dencun was a crucial hard fork aimed at reducing transaction fees for layer-2 scaling solutions and enhancing Ethereum’s overall scalability.

On March 5, 2025, at 7:29 AM UTC, Ethereum developer Terence Tsao confirmed that Pectra successfully launched on the Sepolia testnet, marking the second phase of testing. This achievement comes after a previous setback on the Holesky testnet, where a validator misconfiguration led to a temporary chain split. While the Sepolia test was flawless, Holesky requires further debugging, which could take at least 18 more days to resolve issues related to correlation penalties and validator balance drains.

Test networks like Sepolia and Holesky play a critical role in Ethereum’s development by providing a controlled environment for testing new upgrades before they go live on the mainnet. With Sepolia successfully tested, Ethereum moves one step closer to Pectra’s full deployment.

Ethereum Pectra’s Two-Phase Rollout

The Pectra upgrade introduces significant improvements, including enhanced scalability and the ability to pay gas fees using stablecoins. It will be rolled out in two phases:

Phase 1 – Scheduled for Mid-March 2025

• Doubling Layer-2 Blob Capacity – Increasing the number of blobs per block from three to six, reducing transaction fees and alleviating network congestion.
• Account Abstraction – Enabling users to pay gas fees with stablecoins like USDC and DAI, improving payment flexibility.
• Increased Staking Limits – Raising the maximum validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, streamlining large-scale staking operations.

Phase 2 – Expected Late 2025 or Early 2026

• Verkle Trees – A new data structure replacing Merkle-Patricia tries, significantly improving data storage efficiency and supporting Ethereum’s move toward stateless clients.
• Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS) – A system that enables nodes to verify transaction data without storing the entire dataset, further enhancing scalability.

Key Features of the Pectra Upgrade

1. Improved Scalability

Pectra introduces mechanisms to increase Ethereum’s transaction throughput, allowing the network to handle more transactions per second (TPS). This is essential as decentralized applications (DApps) and network users continue to grow.

2. Lower Transaction Fees

By optimizing data storage and processing, Pectra aims to reduce gas fees, making transactions more affordable for users and developers alike.

3. Smart Accounts

Ethereum will introduce smart accounts, enabling users to execute multiple transactions simultaneously. This innovation brings greater flexibility and opens new possibilities for wallet functionality and automation.

4. Enhanced Security

Advanced cryptographic techniques within Pectra will provide stronger security for smart contracts and user data, ensuring a more robust Ethereum network.

Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) in Pectra

The Pectra upgrade includes 11 key Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) designed to enhance scalability, staking, and user experience.

Major EIPs in the Pectra Upgrade

1. EIP-7251 (Higher Staking Limit) – Increases the validator staking balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, making staking more flexible and efficient.
2. EIP-7691 (More Data for Layer-2s) – Doubles the blob data capacity from three to six blobs per block, lowering Layer-2 transaction costs.
3. EIP-7623 (Optimized Call Data Costs) – Encourages developers to use blobs instead of call data, improving cost efficiency.
4. EIP-7840 (Flexible Blob Configuration) – Allows future adjustments to blob capacity without requiring major protocol changes.
5. EIP-7702 (Smart Accounts) – Enables temporary contract wallets, allowing for gas fee sponsorship, batch transactions, and passkey authentication.
6. EIP-6110 (Faster Staking Deposits) – Reduces validator activation time, improving staking efficiency.
7. EIP-7002 (Easier Validator Withdrawals) – Simplifies unstaking, removing the complex Beacon Chain process.
8. EIP-7685 (Improved Execution-Consensus Communication) – Standardizes execution and consensus layer interactions, making Ethereum smoother and more efficient.
9. EIP-2537 (Faster Cryptographic Proofs) – Enhances zero-knowledge proof efficiency, reducing transaction costs for Layer-2 solutions.
10. EIP-2935 (Extended Block History) – Keeps 27 hours of on-chain block hashes instead of 51 minutes, improving data access for smart contracts.
11. EIP-7549 (More Efficient Validator Voting) – Optimizes validator attestations, reducing resource usage and improving consensus speed.

Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs): A Brief Overview

Ethereum’s evolution relies on Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), which introduce new features, optimizations, or upgrades to the network. EIPs provide technical specifications and serve as the blueprint for Ethereum’s development.

Anyone in the Ethereum community can propose an EIP, but it must go through a rigorous review and approval process before implementation. Major upgrades like Dencun and Pectra consist of multiple EIPs that are carefully developed and tested before being deployed on the mainnet.

What’s Next? The Verge and Verkle Trees

Ethereum’s post-Merge roadmap includes the Verge stage, which will introduce Verkle trees—a revolutionary data storage system that significantly reduces hardware requirements and improves sync times.

Ethereum’s long-term roadmap consists of five core development phases:

1. The Merge – Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) in September 2022.
2. The Surge – Focused on scalability through rollups and sharding.
3. The Verge – Implementation of Verkle trees to optimize state storage.
4. The Purge – Reducing historical data storage to improve efficiency.
5. The Splurge – Final refinements and additional improvements.

In November 2022, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin introduced a sixth stage, “The Scourge”, to address censorship resistance and maximal extractable value (MEV) issues.

The upgrade after Pectra is already dubbed “Fusaka” (a blend of star Fulu and Devcon city Osaka), which will focus on implementing Verkle trees for Ethereum’s state storage.

By transitioning to Verkle trees, Ethereum will achieve:

• Smaller proof sizes, reducing storage costs.
• Lower hardware requirements, allowing lighter clients to run efficiently.
• Faster synchronization, enabling near-instant node sync.

Ethereum’s continuous improvements ensure that it remains the leading smart contract blockchain, capable of supporting the next wave of innovation in decentralized finance, gaming, and Web3 applications.

With Pectra on the horizon and Verkle trees set to revolutionize data storage, Ethereum is well-positioned for a more scalable, efficient, and user-friendly future.