What upgrades have brought to ETH?
The technical upgrades to Ethereum are driving its transformation from a 'noble chain' to a 'high-performance infrastructure,' with core breakthroughs.
1. Mainnet performance migration: The disruptive impact of the EIP-9698 proposal, which plans to phase increase the Gas limit from 36 million to 3.6 billion, will cause the theoretical TPS of the mainnet to soar from 15 to 2000, directly challenging the dominance of high-performance public chains like Solana. 2025-2026 is the first phase (Gas limit raised to 360 million), single block transaction capacity will jump from 180 transactions to 6000 transactions, and transaction costs are expected to decrease by 90%.
Quantum resistance and RISC-V architecture: The Ethereum Foundation is collaborating with IBM to develop quantum-resistant signature algorithms, expected to be deployed in 2026; the new virtual machine architecture RISC-V will improve smart contract execution efficiency by a hundredfold, and ZK proof costs will decrease by 80%.
2. Layer 2 ecosystem explosion: The rise of invisible empires, siphoning of users and capital: Leading Layer 2 projects like Arbitrum and Optimism have surpassed 5.8 million weekly active addresses, accounting for 58% of the total DeFi trading volume on the chain; institutions like BlackRock and Fidelity are positioning tokenized funds (RWA) through Layer 2, with monthly locked assets increasing by 37% to $48 billion.
Technical integration breakthrough: Uniswap V4 launched on the Base network, achieving a hybrid architecture of 'L2 liquidity aggregation + mainnet settlement,' reducing transaction slippage to 0.05%.
3. Pectra upgrade: Blob expansion and cross-chain collaboration, the Pectra upgrade will increase the Blob target from 3 to 6, significantly enhancing L2 network throughput and paving the way for the subsequent EIP-9698.
4. On-chain data divergence: The number of active Layer 2 addresses has surpassed 13.6 million, setting a historical high, while prices remain at bear market lows, creating a sharp dislocation between technology and the market.
