Ethereum (ETH) Pectra Mainnet Upgrade Date Confirmed by Devs
After months of stringent internal stress testing of devnets and testnets, Ethereum (ETH) developers agreed to transition toward implementing Pectra on mainnet this March. The largest upgrade in Ethereum's (ETH) history since migration to proof of stake, Pectra is expected to make Ethereum (ETH) dramatically faster and cheaper.
Ethereum (ETH) Pectra mainnet rollout scheduled for March
Ethereum (ETH) Pectra upgrade's inaugural phase will be activated in mainnet by mid-March 2025. This decision was made yesterday, Jan. 16, 2025, at the Ethereum All Execution Developers Meeting #203, says Christine Kim, researcher at Galaxy Digital.
On Feb. 12, 2025, Ethereum's testnet, Sepolia, will be worked on, followed by Holesky one week later. Also, developers agreed to replace the next devnet with a "shadow fork" on Sepolia or Holesky.
Kim stressed that such a timeline might be adjusted yet again and should be considered a "positive scenario" for the testnet and mainnet rollouts:
Keep in mind the above is a tentative and optimistic timeline for pectra activation on testnets and mainnet.
Previously, Ethereum Prague-Electra (Pectra) upgrade was expected to kick off in December 2024. It is safe to say that its full roll-out will take a year and a half.
The inaugural phase of Pectra activation will happen in 2025, while the next upgrades will be rolled out in early 2026, developers estimate.
Smart wallets, new ETH staking limits, unmatched TPS: Why Pectra is big
As covered by U.Today previously, Ethereum Pectra is one of the most ambitious hardforks in the entire history of cryptocurrency. Most importantly, it will blur the line between on-chain accounts and smart contracts, paving the way for previously unimagined DeFi designs.
Vladislav SopovIt is also set to reconsider the Ether staking mechanism in the PoS contract. Users will be able to stake up to 2,048 ETH compared to today's 32 ETH limit.
Also, with increased blob space (a blob is a specific data structure in Ethereum), some EVM L2 networks, including the likes of Starknet and Fuel, might reach 1,600 transactions per second speed.
EIP 7702, the most discussed update on Pectra's agenda, will make the blockchain more cost-optimized due to batched transactions.
Ethereum (ETH) is trading at $3,430, up 5% in the last 24 hours.
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