Ethereum Pectra Upgradeis another important milestone after the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 (which significantly reduced Layer 2 fees), and includes 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs).
Unlike previous upgrades (such as Shapella allowing staking ETH withdrawals), Pectra does not have a single prominent goal, but rather comprehensively improves network performance through multiple technical optimizations,laying the foundation for future upgrades (such as Fusaka).
Since the mainnet was launched on July 30, 2015, Ethereum has undergone several major hard fork and soft fork upgrades, each of which aims toimprove the performance, security, scalability or functionality of the network.
The following is a review of Ethereum's 15 major upgrades in the past, covering key hard forks and important milestones, summarized in chronological order:
Homestead (2016)
Ethereum's first major hard fork, which enhanced network stability, optimized smart contract functions, and laid the foundation for DApp development.
Tangerine Whistle (2016)
Emergency hard fork fixes DoS vulnerability, adjusts Gas cost, and improves network anti-attack ability.
Spurious Dragon (2016)
Optimize security, introduce chain ID to prevent replay attacks, and clean up invalid accounts to reduce storage burden.
Byzantium (2017)
Supports ZK-SNARKs and REVERT opcodes to improve privacy functions and smart contract efficiency.
Constantinople (2019)
Introduced CREATE2 and bitwise operation opcodes to reduce Gas costs and promote the early development of DeFi.
Istanbul (2019)
Optimized ZK-SNARKs performance, reduced Calldata costs, and enhanced Layer 2 and cross-chain compatibility.
Muir Glacier (2020)
Postpone the difficulty bomb, stabilize the PoW block time, and strive for development space for the PoS transition.
Berlin (2021)
Optimize the Gas mechanism, introduce access lists and Gas payment, and pave the way for EIP-1559.
London (2021)
Introducing EIP-1559 to reform the fee market and enable the ETH destruction mechanism, bringing potential deflationary effects.
Arrow Glacier (2021)
Postponing the difficulty bomb again to ensure the stability of the PoW network and prepare for the merger.
Gray Glacier (2022)
Postponing the difficulty bomb for the last time to ensure the smooth operation of the network before the merger.
The Merge (2022)
Also known as the “Ethereum Merger”, it switches from PoW to PoS, reducing energy consumption by 99.95%, laying the foundation for scalability upgrades.
Shanghai/Capella (2023)
Also known as the “Shanghai Upgrade”, it enables withdrawals of staked ETH, enhances liquidity, and drives growth in stake participation rates.
Cancun/Deneb (Dencun, 2024)
Also known as the "Cancun Upgrade", it introduces EIP-4844 and Blob storage, significantly reduces Layer 2 fees, and boosts the Rollup ecosystem.
Pectra (2025)
Realize account abstraction, increase the staking limit and Blob capacity, and optimize user experience and Layer 2 scalability.
Background of Pectra Upgrade
Pectra is another important milestone after the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 (which significantly reduced Layer 2 fees), and includes 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). Unlike previous upgrades (such as Shapella allowing staking ETH withdrawals), Pectra does not have a single prominent goal, but instead comprehensively improves network performance through multiple technical optimizations, laying the foundation for future upgrades (such as Fusaka).
General user experience upgrade - account abstraction (EIP-7702)
The technical protocol EIP-7702 in the Pectra upgrade introduces a mechanism that allows EOA accounts to be temporarily or permanently upgraded to smart accounts by attaching smart contract code.
The main functions supported include:
Custom logic:Support flexible security policies and transaction verification rules
Batch authorization + transaction:Perform multiple operations (such as authorization + exchange) with one signature.
Payment of handling fees:Third party pays Gas fee, or pays with stable currency.
EIP-7702 lowers the entry threshold for new users, improves the interactive experience of DApps, and promotes wallet innovation, such as supporting biometrics and stablecoin Gas payments. However, the real comprehensive application needs to focus on the actual application effect of EIP-7702. It is undeniable that EIP-7702 will bring more possibilities to the Ethereum ecosystem!
Validator Staking Optimization - EIP-7002
Technical Protocol EIP-7002 in Pectra Upgrade introduces a withdrawal mechanism triggered by the execution layer, allowing addresses of non-validator keys to initiate withdrawals, reducing the trust dependence on delegated staking.
EIP-7002 Specific improvements:
Support decentralization: Enhance the flexibility of staking pools (such as Lido and Rocket Pool), allowing users to exit independently and promote a decentralized ecosystem.
Exit credentials: The validator's exit authority is bound to the execution layer address. The user can trigger the exit by signing a transaction with the private key without relying on the validator's key.
Reduce trust dependence: Users directly control the exit of delegated staking, reduce the trust risk of the staking pool, and improve fund security.
Simplified operation:Withdrawal is initiated through standard Ethereum transactions, which is easy to operate and suitable for non-technical users and institutions.
EIP-7002 will immediately improve the withdrawal experience of stakers, especially for users of services such as Lido and Rocket Pool, and is expected to drive further growth in staking participation rates.
Enhanced Layer 2 Scalability (EIP-7691 and EIP-7623)
EIP-7691 and EIP-7623 are two key improvement proposals for Layer 2 scalability in the Ethereum Pectra upgrade, aiming to reduce transaction fees and increase throughput of the Layer 2 network by optimizing data availability (DA) and block resource allocation.
Specific impact:
Increase throughput:Rollup TPS theoretically doubles (such as Arbitrum increases from 100 to 200), depending on the optimization.
Reduce Layer 2 fees:Blob capacity doubles (6/9) to increase data availability, and it is expected that the Rollup fees of Optimism, Arbitrum, etc. will be further reduced from US$0.01 to approximately US$0.005, and the independent Blob Gas market will stabilize fee fluctuations.
Pectra UpgradeThrough account abstraction, pledge optimization, Blob capacity improvement and cryptographic improvements, Ethereum's user experience, efficiency and scalability are significantly enhanced. At the same time, Pectra is part of Ethereum's "Surge" phase, which lays the foundation for subsequent Fusaka upgrades (introducing PeerDAS, Verkle trees, etc.), and the long-term goal is to achieve stateless clients and higher throughput. Next, Vitalik's proposed RISC-V technology may further innovate the efficiency of smart contract execution and help Ethereum cope with competition.
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