The Much-Anticipated Pectra Upgrade of Ethereum is now Active

After a series of delays, Ethereum's Pectra upgrade has finally been activated. This significant update, one of the most important since the Merge in 2022, combines the Prague execution layer and Electra consensus layer, incorporating 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs).

These EIPs target various improvements including account abstraction, enhanced staking mechanics, and blob throughput. The Pectra upgrade, originally scheduled for March, was postponed to May 7, 2025, due to technical glitches. It includes several technical enhancements aimed at future-proofing Ethereum, such as allowing traditional wallets to function more like smart contracts, increasing the validator stake limit, reducing data verification costs for layer-2 rollups, and setting the groundwork for more flexible execution environments.

These changes aim to enhance the user experience while strengthening the infrastructure that supports decentralized computation at scale.