Tonight at 18:00, Ethereum will welcome the Pectra upgrade. After the last test failure delayed the upgrade, $ETH directly fell below 1400;
So this upgrade is crucial; many improvements are subtle and may not quickly reflect in the coin price.
1⃣ Account abstraction, your wallet will become smarter
The Ethereum wallets we used before (like MetaMask) were just a shell for 'receiving and sending money' and couldn't handle complex tasks.
After the upgrade, wallets can automatically handle multi-step transactions, set password recovery, multi-signature security, and even allow others to pay for your Gas.
✅ For retail investors: using wallets to engage in DeFi and claim airdrops will no longer require '8 clicks and 5 confirmations'—interaction steps will be simplified.
2⃣ Staking limits raised, making it easier for large holders and institutions to participate
Currently, you can stake a maximum of 32 ETH at a time, which requires batching and management, making it cumbersome and costly.
After the upgrade, the limit is raised to 2048 ETH, allowing large holders to consolidate staking pools and reduce the number of validators.
✅ For node operators: management costs will become lower, and small stakers will be more flexible.
3⃣ Layer 2 networks are faster and cheaper now
In simple terms, this upgrade is specifically designed to speed up Layer 2 (like Arbitrum, Optimism, Base).
It makes the step of 'transmitting data to the mainnet' more efficient and cost-effective—Gas fees and transfer speeds on L2 will improve in the future.
✅ For retail investors using L2 for airdrops and trading: save on Gas and have a smoother experience.
✅ For developers: significantly reduces the cost of deploying L2 applications.
4⃣ Withdrawals and deposits are more flexible now
Previously, only the consensus layer (Beacon chain) could control staked funds; after the upgrade, the execution layer (the wallet you usually use) can also allocate funds.
This means that in the future, staking and unstaking can be done more automatically and modularly, providing the possibility to build 'automated staking products' for DeFi.
✅ For staking platforms and DeFi projects, this is a positive development; retail investors can look forward to a variety of new staking derivatives being launched, potentially increasing annual returns.
Lastly, the most critical point: don't listen to @VitalikButerin saying he doesn't care about the coin price; can it please rise sharply?!
