Ethereum Launches Pectra Upgrade with Enhanced Features and Efficiency
Ethereum's latest upgrade, the Pectra hard fork, has launched successfully, enhancing its execution and consensus layers. Key changes include:
Key Features
- Smart accounts (EIP-7702): Users can temporarily use externally owned accounts (EOAs) like smart contracts, enabling batched transactions and gas payments.
- Data availability scaling (EIP-7691): Blobspace capacity increased from six to twelve blobs per block, improving rollup throughput and reducing Layer 2 fees.
- Validator UX and efficiency: Maximum effective validator balance raised from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, facilitating easier compounding of rewards for institutions.
The upgrade paves the way for Ethereum's next major improvement, Fusaka, expected in 2026. This will introduce a more efficient data availability sampling scheme and further account abstraction developments.
Focus now shifts to ecosystem adoption, with expectations for wallets and dapps to implement new features that leverage EIP-7702. Increased rollup activity will be crucial to fully utilize the expanded blob capacity without causing scaling issues.
Future challenges include ensuring efficient data propagation as network behavior becomes less predictable with increased blob sizes and message throughput.
