What is the Pectra Upgrade? Inside Ethereum’s Future Roadmap
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade enhances scalability, staking, and gas payment options with significant technological improvements.
Proposed in November 2023, the Pectra upgrade follows the Dencun upgrade in March 2024 and is expected to be deployed in March 2025.
Pectra is the third significant upgrade since the 2022 merger, which saw Ethereum transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.
Pectra improves network performance and user experience by merging the Prague and Electra upgrades.
Key features include account abstraction, smart contract optimization, and improved staking.
Stakers benefit from higher validator limits, from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, and flexible withdrawals.
The Ethereum ecosystem is constantly evolving. The latest milestone in its development is the Pectra upgrade.
Set for March 2025, the Pectra upgrade combines the Prague and Electra upgrades, which were originally planned as separate updates but were combined for better integration and improved scalability, efficiency, and usability.
The Pectra Upgrade introduces account abstraction for flexible payment terms, Smart Contract improvements, improved staking options, and technical upgrades such as Verkle trees and PeerDAS for optimized data management and Layer 2 support. We will explain all of these concepts below.
What is the Ethereum Pectra Upgrade?
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade improves the scalability, efficiency, and flexibility of the network. Pectra expands storage for layer-2 solutions while reducing fees.
One of Pectra’s most user-friendly improvements is flexible gas payments. In Ethereum, “gas” refers to transaction fees that compensate validators for securing the network. With account abstraction, Pectra allows users to pay these fees using ERC-20 tokens like USDC instead of being limited to ETH. Account abstraction simplifies Ethereum transactions by making wallets act like smart contracts, providing more control over how transactions are executed.
The Pectra upgrade also introduces Peer Data Availability Sampling, or PeerDAS. PeerDAS improves Ethereum’s scalability by allowing nodes to verify transaction data without storing it entirely, making the network more efficient.
Another innovation is Verkle Trees, a new data structure that combines Vector Commitments and Merkle Trees and provides a more efficient data storage upgrade for Ethereum. Verkle Trees optimize the storage and verification of information, significantly reducing the amount of data that validators need to maintain while allowing for fast and secure access to network information.
When will Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade take place?
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade is expected to take place in mid-March 2025 and will be implemented in two phases. Phase 1 will introduce key improvements, such as doubling the layer-2 blob capacity from three to six to reduce congestion and fees, enabling Account Abstraction to allow gas payments in tokens such as DAI and USDC stablecoins, and increasing the maximum staking limit from 32 to 2,048 ETH to simplify large-scale validating operations.
Phase 2, expected in late 2025 or early 2026, will implement advanced optimizations, including PeerDAS and Verkle Trees, to improve data storage and network efficiency.
The last major Ethereum upgrade, Dencun, took place on March 13, 2024. It introduced proto-danksharding, which reduces transaction costs for layer 2 blockchains by using temporary data called binary large objects, or ‘blobs’. Rather than relying on permanent on-chain storage, these blobs reduce network congestion, improve scalability, and pave the way for upgrades like Pectra.
How does the Pectra upgrade work?
Key Features of Pectra
Account Abstraction: This feature allows gas payments in multiple tokens (e.g. USDC, DAI) and allows for third-party fee funding.
Smart Contract Optimizations (EIP-7692): Improve the efficiency of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
Validator Upgrades:
EIP-7002: Enable flexible staking withdrawals.
EIP-7251: Increase validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH.
Data Storage Improvements:
Verkle Trees: Reduce storage requirements and improve transaction processing.
PeerDAS: Enhance Layer 2 scalability and reduce network congestion.
What Ethereum Improvement Proposals are part of the Pectra upgrade?
The Pectra upgrade introduces several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to enhance wallet usability, staking, and scalability.