Ethereum Team Announces Long-Awaited ‘Pectra’ Protocol Update

Pectra: The Next Big Upgrade for Ethereum

The latest Ethereum upgrade, Pectra, has finally received a timeline from the developers. This significant update promises to introduce various speed and efficiency improvements to the second-largest blockchain.

Target Release Date Set for March 2025

Ethereum’s core team announced the target release date for Pectra at a developer meeting held virtually on Thursday. The upgrade is expected to be rolled out in early or mid-March, pending successful testing on Ethereum’s Sepolia and Holesky test networks throughout February.

Pectra: A Package of Eight Major Upgrades

Pectra combines eight major upgrades, or “Ethereum improvement proposals” (EIPs), into one package. Among the most anticipated upgrades is EIP-7702, which aims to improve the user-experience of wallets by enabling them to be programmed like smart contracts.

Streamlining Wallet Experience and Staking

The upgrade, reportedly sketched out by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in just 22 minutes, will make setting up and using wallets a lot less clunky. EIP-7251 is another highly-anticipated upgrade that increases the maximum amount validators can stake from 32 to 2,048 ETH.

This change addresses a significant nuisance faced by validators who stake ETH to keep the chain running today. Currently, those who want to invest more than 32 ETH with the network must split their stake between dozens – or sometimes hundreds – of separate nodes. This not only results in weeks-long lines for setting up new nodes but also imposes a significant burden on validators.

A Stripped-Down Version of Earlier Plans

While Pectra was originally planned to be Ethereum’s biggest blockchain)”>hard fork[/highlight] to date, the developers decided to split the original package into two due to its ambitious scope. The upgrades included in Pectra are now more stripped-down than earlier plans, but still significant.

Testing and Deployment

Developers plan to test Pectra on Ethereum’s Sepolia and Holesky test networks throughout February. If all goes well, developers will proceed to bring Pectra to mainnet in early or mid-March.