In 2025, the Ethereum Foundation made several important changes to promote the development of the Ethereum ecosystem, focusing on technical upgrades, user experience (UX) improvements, developer support, ecosystem expansion, and its own strategic adjustments. Below is a detailed analysis of the key changes made by the Ethereum Foundation in 2025, in conjunction with previous discussions (such as the Pectra upgrade, L1 expansion, and UX improvements) and the context of 2025.
1. Technical upgrades: Promote the Pectra upgrade and subsequent roadmap
One of the most significant changes by the Ethereum Foundation in 2025 is successfully coordinating and promoting the Pectra upgrade (expected to go live in Q1-Q2 2025), which is another important milestone for Ethereum after the Dencun upgrade in 2024. Below are specific changes and impacts:
(1) Implementation of the Pectra upgrade
• Core improvements:
• EIP-7251: Staking mechanism optimization
Increase the maximum staking balance for a single validator from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, reducing the number of validators (from 1 million to about 500,000), lowering network communication load, and improving consensus layer efficiency.
• EIP-7702: Account abstraction
Introduce temporary smart contract account features, supporting batch transactions, Gas fee payment (e.g., using USDC to pay Gas), social recovery, etc., significantly improving user experience.
• EIP-7691: Increased blob capacity
Increase the available blob capacity for L2 networks from 3 to 6 (from 384 KB to 768 KB), reducing L2 transaction costs and supporting more Rollup expansions.
• EIP-7685: Optimization of communication between execution layer and consensus layer
Simplify operations such as deposits and withdrawals, laying the groundwork for future direct interactions between smart contracts and the consensus layer.
• Impact:
• A more efficient staking ecosystem will attract more institutional participation (the staking ratio may increase from 30% to 40%).
• Transaction fees for L2 networks (such as Arbitrum, Optimism) will be further reduced, with daily active users potentially exceeding 5 million (compared to 2 million in 2024).
• User experience improvements, wallets (such as MetaMask) adapting to account abstraction will support more complex operations.
(2) Preliminary preparations for PeerDAS and Verkle Trees
• PeerDAS (Peer Data Availability Sampling):
• In 2025, the Ethereum Foundation accelerated the development and testing of PeerDAS, which may be introduced in the second phase of Pectra (the end of 2025) or subsequent upgrades.
• Change: Through data availability sampling, the DA capacity of L1 may increase to several MB, significantly enhancing L2 scalability.
• Impact: Lower L2 costs, support more application scenarios, but may also face testing delays and technical challenges.
• Verkle Trees:
• In 2025, the Ethereum Foundation will promote the implementation of Verkle Trees, entering a critical phase (expected to go live at the end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026).
• Change: Optimize state storage and reduce full node storage requirements (from 1TB to several dozen GB), achieving a stateless client.
• Impact: Attract more decentralized nodes to join, enhancing the decentralization of the network.
(3) Research progress on Single-Slot Finality (SSF)
• Change: In 2025, the Ethereum Foundation will invest more resources in researching SSF (Single-Slot Finality) with the goal of reducing the block finality time from 15 minutes to a few seconds.
• Impact:
• In the short term, SSF will enter the testing network verification phase (e.g., Holesky testnet).
• In the long run, SSF will improve the transaction speed of Ethereum L1, narrowing the gap with high-performance chains such as Solana.
2. User Experience (UX) Improvements: Lowering the Usage Threshold
A significant change for the Ethereum Foundation in 2025 is a greater focus on user experience, lowering the usage threshold for ordinary users and developers through technical upgrades and community support.
(1) Promotion of Account Abstraction
• Change:
• The introduction of account abstraction through EIP-7702 and EIP-3074 in the Pectra upgrade will allow ordinary accounts (EOAs) to support batch transactions, Gas fee payment, social recovery, etc.
• The Ethereum Foundation collaborates with wallet developers (such as MetaMask, Rainbow) to promote wallet adaptation to these new features.
• Impact:
• Users can more easily perform complex operations, such as completing multiple transactions at once (batch transfers, authorizations).
• Project teams can pay Gas fees for users (for example, new users can experience DApps without needing ETH), lowering the entry barrier.
• Social recovery features reduce the risk of private key loss and enhance security.
(2) Standardization of cross-L2 interoperability
• Change:
• Promote the ERC-7683 proposal to standardize the execution and settlement of cross-L2 transactions.
• Support seamless asset transfers between L2 networks (such as Arbitrum, Optimism).
• Impact:
• Users can transfer assets between L2s without complex bridging (e.g., transferring directly from Optimism to Base).
• Enhance the overall liquidity of the L2 ecosystem and reduce fragmentation issues.
(3) Educational resources and user support
• Change:
• The Ethereum Foundation will launch more educational content for new users, such as 'Ethereum Beginner's Guide,' video tutorials, etc.
• Fund the development of more user-friendly front-end tools and wallet interfaces through the Grants program.
• Impact:
• Lower the learning curve for new users, such as how to choose an L2 network and how to manage wallets securely.
• Attract more non-technical users to join the Ethereum ecosystem.
3. Developer support: Strengthening ecosystem construction
In 2025, the Ethereum Foundation increased its support for developers to solidify Ethereum's position as a leading smart contract platform.
(1) Grants and developer activities
• Change:
• Increase funding for the Grants program, potentially allocating over $50 million in 2025 (compared to $40 million in 2024), supporting L1 expansion, UX improvements, and L2-related projects.
• Hold more hackathons and developer conferences, such as Devcon 2025 (possibly held in Southeast Asia).
• Impact:
• Attract more developers to join the Ethereum ecosystem, with the number of developers potentially increasing from 400,000 in 2024 to 500,000.
• Give rise to more innovative applications, especially in the DeFi, NFT, and GameFi fields.
(2) Optimization of developer tools
• Change:
• Launch more efficient smart contract development tools, such as improved Solidity compilers and more powerful debugging tools.
• Support EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) performance optimization, such as exploring the possibility of replacing EVM bytecode through the RISC-V proposal (promoted by Vitalik Buterin).
• Impact:
• Lower the barriers to smart contract development and improve development efficiency.
• The RISC-V proposal may spark community controversy, but if successful, it will significantly enhance EVM performance.
4. Ecosystem expansion: Supporting L2 and cross-chain development
The Ethereum Foundation recognizes the importance of L2 networks for Ethereum scalability, increasing support for the L2 ecosystem in 2025 while exploring cross-chain interoperability.
(1) Support for the L2 ecosystem
• Change:
• Enhance L1's DA capabilities through the Pectra upgrade (EIP-7691) to support L2 network expansion.
• Fund the development and user growth plans of L2 projects (such as Arbitrum, Optimism, zkSync).
• Impact:
• Daily active users on L2 may increase from 2 million in 2024 to 5 million.
• The total value locked (TVL) in L2 may increase from $30 billion in 2024 to $50 billion.
(2) Cross-chain interoperability
• Change:
• Support cross-chain bridge protocols such as Wormhole and LayerZero to enhance interoperability between Ethereum and other chains (e.g., Solana, Polkadot).
• Promote the integration of off-chain computation and oracles (such as Chainlink) to enhance the diversity of the Ethereum ecosystem.
• Impact:
• Ethereum users can more easily interact with other chains, such as transferring ETH directly to the Solana ecosystem.
• Attract more cross-chain liquidity to enhance the competitiveness of the Ethereum ecosystem.
5. Organizational strategic adjustments: More transparent and efficient
In 2025, the Ethereum Foundation also adjusted its own operations and strategies to better support the Ethereum ecosystem.
(1) Improve transparency
• Change:
• Publish more detailed annual reports disclosing fund usage (e.g., Grants allocation, research investment).
• Increase community participation, such as interacting with users through platforms like Reddit, Discord, etc.
• Impact:
• Enhance community trust and avoid criticism of 'the Ethereum Foundation being too centralized.'
• Attract more community members to participate in governance and technical discussions.
(2) Resource allocation optimization
• Change:
• Allocate more resources to L1 expansion and UX improvements, such as the development of PeerDAS and Verkle Trees.
• Reduce funding for non-core projects and focus on high-priority roadmaps.
• Impact:
• Accelerate the implementation of core Ethereum upgrades, such as Pectra and Danksharding.
• Enhance resource utilization efficiency, but may lead to some small projects losing funding.
(3) Exploration of Decentralized Governance
• Change:
• Explore more decentralized governance models, such as deciding part of the Grants allocation through on-chain voting.
• Strengthen cooperation with the L2 community to avoid the fragmentation of L1 and L2 ecosystems.
• Impact:
• Enhance the decentralization characteristics of the Ethereum ecosystem.
• May face the risk of reduced governance efficiency, requiring
