The Pectra upgrade is a significant advancement for the Ethereum blockchain, focusing on enhancing scalability, user experience, validator performance, and developer efficiency. Launched on May 7, 2025, Pectra integrates several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) that affect both the execution and consensus layers of the network. This upgrade builds upon previous milestones like Dencun and The Merge, pushing Ethereum's capabilities further.
This article provides a detailed explanation of the Pectra upgrade, its place in Ethereum's development roadmap, its key features, and its importance for the future of the network.
What is the Pectra Upgrade in Ethereum?
The Pectra upgrade represents Ethereum's latest network enhancement, merging two distinct initiatives—Prague (execution layer) and Electra (consensus layer)—into a single, synchronized update. Its primary objectives are to improve scalability, transaction efficiency, validator flexibility, and wallet functionality.
As of June 2025, Pectra is Ethereum's most recent upgrade, marking a crucial step in the network's ongoing evolution towards becoming faster, more cost-effective, and user-friendly.
Pectra is live on Ethereum mainnet!
– Smart account wallet UX features now active
– L2 scaling data storage blobs increased by 2x
– Validator UX improvements liveCommunity members will continue to monitor for any issues over the next 24 hours.
Background and Roadmap Placement
Since its inception in 2015, Ethereum has followed a structured roadmap, with each milestone addressing specific limitations and preparing the network for future growth.
A pivotal moment in Ethereum's history was The Merge in 2022, which transitioned the network from a proof-of-work (PoW) consensus mechanism to the more energy-efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS).
In 2024, the Dencun upgrade introduced EIP-4844, also known as proto-danksharding. This feature enabled support for blob transactions, significantly reducing gas fees on Layer-2 networks and driving increased adoption of rollups.
Building on these advancements, the Pectra upgrade was launched in May 2025. It focuses on refining the execution layer, enhancing validator staking flexibility, and introducing smart wallet capabilities through features like account abstraction. Pectra aims to simultaneously boost network usability, efficiency, and scalability.
Before its mainnet deployment, Pectra underwent extensive testing on three major testnets: Holesky, Sepolia, and Hoodi, ensuring its readiness and stability.
Key Features and Technical Improvements of the Pectra Upgrade
what’s coming in Ethereum Pectra? 👇🏻
largest upgrade of ethereum in terms of included EIPs
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade introduces a comprehensive set of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) designed to enhance the network's usability, efficiency, and scalability. The most significant changes are detailed below:
Smarter Wallets: From EOAs to Smart Accounts
EIP-7702 upgrades externally owned accounts (EOAs), enabling them to function temporarily as smart contracts. This feature advances Ethereum towards account abstraction, facilitating flexible capabilities such as multi-action transactions, session keys, and sponsored gas fees, all contributing to an improved user experience.
Better Staking and Validator Experience
Several EIPs within Pectra streamline staking operations and offer validators greater flexibility:
- •EIP-6110: Automates validator deposit handling directly on-chain, reducing delays and accelerating syncing speeds.
- •EIP-7002: Permits validators to withdraw their staked ETH via smart contracts, enabling smoother and more flexible exit processes.
- •EIP-7251: Increases the maximum ETH a validator can hold from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH. This reduces the need for multiple validator nodes and facilitates easier compounding of rewards.
- •EIP-7549: Refactors the organization of attestation data, which helps to reduce network congestion and improve consensus efficiency.
Enhanced Blob Support for Layer-2 Scaling
To lower fees and improve throughput for Layer-2 rollups, Pectra enhances Ethereum's support for blob transactions:
- •EIP-7623: Increases the cost of calldata, encouraging more efficient blob usage and promoting better scaling practices.
- •EIP-7691: Expands blob capacity per block, allowing for more data to be included and thereby reducing costs for Layer-2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism.
- •EIP-7840: Introduces scheduling flexibility for blobs in Ethereum's configuration files, aiding future upgrades in adjusting blob size without requiring hard forks.
Cryptographic Enhancements and Infrastructure Upgrades
Pectra also strengthens Ethereum's cryptographic foundation and improves coordination between the protocol's different layers:
- •EIP-2537: Introduces BLS signature support, enhancing cryptographic security and improving performance for staking, zero-knowledge proofs, and cross-chain bridges.
- •EIP-2935: Restores access to historical block hashes, which are crucial for smart contracts, oracles, and Layer-2 networks that need to verify past states.
- •EIP-7685: Enables the execution layer (EL) to trigger requests from the consensus layer (CL), improving communication between the two and fostering a more reliable infrastructure.
Each of these technical upgrades in Pectra moves Ethereum closer to its objectives of being scalable, secure, and user-friendly for all participants, including casual users, stakers, and developers.
Benefits of the Pectra Upgrade
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade signifies a major step forward in making the Ethereum network faster, cheaper, more secure, and easier to use for everyone. The core benefits Pectra introduces are examined below.
1. Cheaper Transactions for Everyone
One of the most immediate advantages of the Pectra upgrade is the reduction in transaction costs. Since the upgrade's activation, median transaction fees have decreased to approximately 0.000061 ETH (around $0.15) per transfer, making Ethereum more affordable for regular users.
This cost reduction is primarily attributed to improvements in blob data capacity (EIP-7691) and adjustments to call data costs (EIP-7623), which encourage the adoption of efficient Layer-2 solutions. Consequently, blob transaction fees have reached their lowest recorded levels, boosting the adoption of rollups such as Optimism, Arbitrum, and Base.
Noam Hurwitz, head of engineering at Alchemy, noted that Ethereum blob fees have dropped to their lowest possible level since the Pectra upgrade, highlighting the significant impact of these changes on the network's cost-efficiency.
Since Pectra we’ve also seen the longest sustained period of blob fees staying at 1 wei in the past 30d.
1. Scale the L1
2. Scale the blobs
3. Improve UXHuge hits from @ethereum today, with more coming soon.
The Pectra upgrade directly reduces transaction fees, enhancing affordability and accessibility for millions of users and developers.
2. Improved Scalability Across the Network
With the continuous growth of Ethereum adoption, the demand for scalable infrastructure has become paramount. The Pectra upgrade introduces technical improvements that enhance the network's capacity to handle high-volume usage:
- •Blob throughput has been increased, allowing for larger data packets to be processed per block.
- •Extended block history (via EIP-2935) supports better on-chain analytics, more intelligent dApps, and the development of more complex decentralized systems.
- •EIP-2537 adds BLS cryptography, which improves Layer-2 interoperability and the efficiency of zero-knowledge proof operations.
These upgrades inherently make Ethereum more scalable, enabling it to grow without compromising speed or security.
3. A More Intuitive and Powerful User Experience
User experience (UX) is a central focus of Pectra. The inclusion of EIP-7702 allows externally owned accounts (EOAs) to behave like smart contracts temporarily, unlocking new possibilities:
- •Gas fee sponsorship: Allows third parties to cover gas fees for users.
- •Multi-step transactions: Enables users to execute multiple actions in a single transaction.
- •Session keys: Provides temporary keys for secure, recurring transactions without compromising overall security.
Combined with enhanced staking flexibility (EIP-7002 and EIP-7251), these features remove barriers to Ethereum usage, leading to smarter wallets and more manageable staking processes.
4. Empowerment for Developers
Pectra also enhances Ethereum's developer-friendliness by simplifying core processes:
- •EIP-6110 automates validator deposits, reducing the complexity of setting up staking applications.
- •EIP-7685 improves communication between Ethereum's execution and consensus layers, facilitating more robust smart contract logic and cross-layer coordination.
- •Extended block history and improved infrastructure assist dApp developers in building advanced features without over-reliance on external tools or data providers.
These improvements reduce deployment times, streamline debugging and testing, and foster innovation in areas such as wallet design, DeFi, and NFTs.
5. Future-Proofing the Ethereum Network
Pectra not only addresses current issues but also lays the groundwork for Ethereum's long-term scalability and sustainability. Future enhancements, including:
- •Verkle Trees: These will significantly reduce node storage requirements, enabling faster syncing and lighter clients.
- •PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling): This will allow Ethereum to scale data availability efficiently without overburdening full nodes.
These upcoming upgrades are moving Ethereum towards stateless clients, where users and dApps can interact with the network without needing to download the entire blockchain. Pectra's forward-compatible changes, such as configurable blob scheduling (EIP-7840), prepare Ethereum for this next phase.
What’s Next? The Fusaka Upgrade and Verkle Trees
With Pectra now live, Ethereum's development focus shifts to its next major milestone: the Fusaka upgrade, anticipated in late 2025. This upgrade will substantially increase data capacity by expanding blob support from 6 to 48 blobs per block, aiming to reduce Layer 2 transaction fees to below $0.01. A key innovation, PeerDAS, will enable nodes to verify data with minimal downloads, thereby improving network efficiency and accessibility.
The EVM Object Format (EOF), originally planned for Fusaka, has been postponed due to technical complexities and will be included in a future upgrade.
Concurrently, Ethereum is preparing for the integration of Verkle Trees. This fundamental change will enable "stateless clients" by drastically reducing storage requirements and facilitating faster syncing. Collectively, these improvements will make Ethereum more scalable, decentralized, and accessible for users, validators, and developers.
Conclusion
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade, active since May 7, 2025, represents a significant advancement in Ethereum's long-term development roadmap. By consolidating the Prague and Electra upgrades into a single release, Pectra addresses persistent challenges related to gas fees, validator management, wallet usability, and execution layer efficiency.
Many in the community believe that Ethereum's Pectra upgrade could indeed power a comeback for Ether. By reducing transaction costs, enhancing the user and developer experience, and paving the way for future scaling solutions, Pectra strengthens Ethereum's foundation at a time when competing blockchains are rapidly innovating.
While no single upgrade can guarantee price movements, the comprehensive changes introduced by Pectra suggest that Ethereum's Pectra upgrade could indeed power an Ether comeback, particularly if complemented by the successful rollout of Fusaka and Verkle Trees.