On May 7, 2025, at 18:05, Ethereum arrived at the scheduled Pectra mainnet upgrade at Epoch 364032; the Pectra upgrade has been completed.

What is the Pectra upgrade?

The Pectra upgrade is an important milestone in Ethereum's upgrade roadmap, merging the Prague (execution layer) and Electra (consensus layer) updates.

Previously, all major upgrades of Ethereum received significant attention, but this time the Pectra upgrade seems to be overlooked by the market.

I understand why. Ethereum has previously undergone significant changes: the migration from PoW to PoS, the launch of Ethereum burn, and EIP-4884, among others. Although the Pectra upgrade doesn't match the scale of previous ones, it still has some interesting updates.



1. Account Abstraction: Ultimately Enhancing User Experience

One of the biggest changes in the Pectra upgrade is how accounts are handled.

Currently, managing wallets requires going through many cumbersome steps, from signing transactions to managing transaction fees across different networks. Through account abstraction, the Pectra upgrade simplifies the entire process.

EIP-3074 and EIP-7702 are two proposed improvements. EIP-3074 allows traditional wallets (Externally Owned Accounts or EOA) to interact with smart contracts, enabling batch transactions and sponsored transactions.

EIP-7702 goes further, allowing EOAs to temporarily act as smart contract wallets during transactions. Temporary means your EOA wallet only becomes a smart contract wallet during the transaction. It works by adding smart contract code to the EOA address. Let's take a look at how it ideally operates:

  • A single interaction can directly convert USDC to UNI without needing approval.

  • DApps can pay gas fees on behalf of users.

  • Pre-approve users' desired DApps to use with wallets and set spending limits.


EIP-7702, written by Vitalik, seems to have prioritized EIP-3074, and EIP-7702 is also compatible with the implementation of AA.



The idea of an 'EOA temporarily becoming a smart contract' is cool, as current DApps typically do not work well with smart account wallets (trying to use Safe or Avocado multisig with DApps). I hope account abstraction gets more attention after the upgrade.

2. Staking Optimization

For users running validators, the Pectra upgrade brings some significant changes.

EIP-7251 increases the maximum staking amount for validators from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH. It allows large staking providers to consolidate their staking, reducing the number of validators and alleviating network load.

For smaller liquidity stakers, this is also a positive development, as it offers more flexible staking options (you can stake 40 ETH or compound rewards). Furthermore, the Ethereum staking queue will be reduced from hours to minutes.

One major highlight that excites me is related to MEV mitigation, but it seems it won't be implemented in the Pectra upgrade.

3. Scalability Improvements

Pectra introduces peer data availability sampling (PeerDAS) through EIP-7594.

Like Proto-Danksharding in the previous Dencun upgrade, PeerDAS will bring lower gas fees on L2. However, I couldn't find data on how much cheaper it will be (I believe PeerDAS will be especially useful during high usage periods). 0xBreadguy mentioned that the Pectra upgrade will increase blob capacity 2-3 times.




There are also several technical upgrades, such as BLS12-381, which shortens BLS signatures (reducing gas costs), and EIP-2935, which allows transaction verification without blockchain history.

These EIPs, along with the Verkle Trees Transition (EIP-6800), which will ultimately replace the existing Merkle Tree structure, can make lightweight clients more secure and make it easier for nodes to participate in the network, thereby increasing decentralization.

One major change is the modification of the EVM, making it easier to write and deploy smart contracts through 11 EIP standards, reducing costs and increasing efficiency. In other words, developing on Ethereum will become smoother.




I am glad that single-slot (SSF) has finally been launched with the Pectra upgrade, but it has not been included in the upcoming Osaka upgrade.

Vitalik shared in December 2023 that SSF is the simplest way to address most of the flaws in Ethereum's PoS design.



Currently, Ethereum's proof-of-stake consensus mechanism takes about 15 minutes to achieve final confirmation of a block, which means that block cannot be changed or deleted without substantial economic penalties. SSF attempts to reduce this time to a single slot, about 12 seconds, ensuring that blocks are finalized almost immediately after creation.

In fact, this means faster and safer bridging, as well as quicker deposits to CEX. Disappointingly, this has not yet been achieved. The exclusion of this in the upgrade is disappointing, as it suggests that Ethereum developers have not prioritized layer one scalability.

In any case, the Pectra upgrade is a technical upgrade, but I believe the market has underestimated its significance.

Now, let's talk about Ethereum's price.

VanEck predicts that by 2030, Ethereum's price will reach $11,800.




To be honest, the price of $11,800 is quite conservative (I hope Ethereum's price can be higher), but keep in mind that VanEck predicts Solana will only be $335 by 2030.



Thus, based on fundamental predictions, Ethereum's potential is 4.4 times, while SOL is only 2.2 times. Please note that both predictions were made a year ago, before the launch of the Ethereum ETF, so I am eager to see their latest forecasts.

By the way, if you need more bullish views, Ark Invest CEO Cathie Wood predicts that by 2030, Ethereum will reach $166,000, and Bitcoin will reach $1.3 million.

However, I think VanEck's bullish prediction of Ethereum reaching $51,000 is realistic. VanEck's price forecast for Ethereum is based on:

  • VanEck predicts that by 2030, Ethereum will capture 70% of the market share in smart contract platforms, leveraging its first-mover advantage as a global blockchain settlement network.


  • By 2030, Ethereum's revenue is expected to grow from $2.6 billion per year to $51 billion. This growth is attributed to transaction fees, increased MEV, and the launch of 'security as a service' (SaaS), which uses Ethereum staking to secure other protocols (restaking).


  • Ethereum is expected to capture more economic activity in areas such as finance, banking, payments, the metaverse, social networking, gaming, and infrastructure.


  • The potential of Ethereum as a value storage asset has been recognized, with its usability enhanced by the programmability of smart contracts and cross-chain messaging technologies.




Here is a summary of the base, bear, and bull market scenarios.



Ethereum's 70% market share in smart contract platforms seems quite reasonable to me, even though Ethereum's current dominance is only 58%, plus all secondary markets, it's about 65%. Even if SOL skyrockets, Ethereum's dominance has remained unchanged since early 2022.


The proportion of TVL will be a key indicator, as institutions care more about this metric.

With this order, how much can you earn by 2030? Feel free to leave comments, share, like, and discuss.