The Ethereum Foundation officially announced the activation of the 'Pectra' upgrade on the Ethereum network today at block number 2, at 10:05:11 UTC, following a long period of anticipation, technical discussions, and postponements.
This upgrade is considered one of the most significant turning points in Ethereum's journey since the merger upgrade in 2022, due to the substantial changes it brings to the network's technical infrastructure.
The announcement of the activation came through the official account of the Ethereum Foundation on platform X, confirming the start of the upgrade by stating:
The upgrade is in progress.
Pectra activation in epoch 364032 // 10:05:11 UTC.
‘Pectra’ represents a technical integration between the 'Brag' execution layer and the 'Electra' consensus layer, comprising 11 proposals for network improvements (EIPs), covering a wide range of areas such as account abstraction, cost reduction, and performance enhancement.
The update was supposed to be launched in March, but it was postponed to May 7, 2025, due to issues in the test networks, where technical imbalances prompted the technical team to reorganize the launch plan.
Trust was only restored after successful testing on the 'Hudi' network, which culminated in official approval during the Ethereum developers' meeting on April 3.
Technically, the 'Pectra' upgrade offers a package of innovations, the most notable of which are:
Account abstraction (EIP-3074): Enables traditional wallets to behave like smart contracts, allowing for aggregated transactions, fee sponsorship, and improved security.
Raising the validation limit: The maximum share for validators has been raised from 32 to 2,048 Ethereum, enhancing the ability of major players to verify, while improving reward distribution mechanisms for smaller validators.
Peer Data Availability Sampling (PeerDAS): Reduces the costs of data verification for layer two aggregations, enhancing the efficiency of scaling mechanisms.
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