Ethereum Pectra Network Upgrade to Go Live in March

Ethereum’s next high-profile network upgrade, codenamed Pectra, will likely go live in March if hard forks on its test networks go as planned, according to a Jan. 16 Execution Layer Meeting for its core developers.

Hard forks on Ethereum test networks Sepolia and Holesky, and new client releases for the Pectra network upgrade have been scheduled for February. If the hard forks are successful, the mainnet launch will proceed in March.

Ethereum developers decided to split the Pectra upgrade into two packages in Sept. 2024 after realizing that it was too ambitious to implement all planned changes at once. The proposed March launch will implement the first Pectra package, with the second package (the Fusaka upgrade) to come later in the year.

Pectra’s first package will implement several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that improve the network’s user experience and efficiency.

One example is EIP-7702, which aims to improve account abstraction on the network by temporarily allowing native account addresses to operate as smart contract wallets during transactions. This would improve security, as users would not need to sign off on every transaction, reducing the risks of falling for phishing scams.

Another change the Pectra upgrade will implement is the EIP-7251, which aims to increase the maximum amount of ETH a validator can stake from 32 to 2,048. Increasing the staking balance cap reduces the operational burden for validators.