Pectra Upgrade Takes First Step, What Upgrades are Coming to Ethereum?

Original Title: Pectra Upgrade Takes First Step, What Updates Will Ethereum See?

Original Author: Francesco

Original Translator: Luffy, Foresight News

The next Ethereum upgrade, Pectra, has taken its first step.

On February 24, the Pectra upgrade went live on the Holesky testnet; on March 5, Pectra will go live on the Sepolia testnet.

Once these upgrades are successfully implemented on the testnets, the mainnet upgrade date will be set, with the mainnet upgrade expected to take place within 3 to 9 months after the testnet implementation.

Pectra is a significant upgrade that introduces multiple Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) at once:

We can categorize these upgrades into three key areas:

· Enhancing Ethereum Accounts

· Improving the User Experience for Ethereum Validators

· Expanding the processing capability of "data blobs"

Let's delve into some of the upcoming Ethereum Improvement Proposals and how they will benefit the Ethereum protocol and users.

Enhancing Ethereum Accounts: EIP-7702

EIP-7702 brings Ethereum closer to an account abstraction experience at the protocol level. It achieves this by extending the functionality of Ethereum's externally owned accounts (EOAs) with features such as:

Transaction Batching: Executing multiple operations in a single transaction

Gas Fee Sponsorship: Allowing accounts with no ETH to have their gas fees sponsored by others

Additional authentication and recovery mechanisms

Enhancing the User Experience for Ethereum Validators: EIP-7251, EIP-7002, EIP-6110

EIP-7251: Increases the validator's maximum balance to 2048 ETH and enables automatic compounding of rewards for larger valid staking balances. Previously, rewards were calculated based on a 32 ETH balance only. Additionally, validators with larger stakes can now consolidate multiple 32 ETH validators into one.

EIP-7002: By setting the execution layer address to a "withdrawable credential", it is allowed to trigger a withdrawal operation, reducing reliance on trust. Previously, only validators could trigger exit operations.

EIP-6110: Eliminates the delay of up to 2048 blocks after validator deposits before being added to the queue. The expected wait time will shrink from 9 hours to 13 minutes.

Enhancing Processing Capabilities of "Data Blobs": EIP-7691

As the cost of "Blob" continues to rise, there is a need to enhance its processing capabilities. Through EIP-7691, the capacity of "Data Blobs" will increase by 50%: currently, each Ethereum block can hold approximately 3 "Data Blobs" on average (up to 6 during peak demand). With EIP-7691, the average number of "Data Blobs" a block can hold will increase to 6, reaching up to 9 during peak demand.

The next step in further expanding the processing capabilities of "Data Blobs" is to reduce the requirement to store all "Data Blobs" and move them to a subnet that can still be used to validate "Data Blob" data.

Other EIPs Included in the Pectra Upgrade

EIP-2537: Increases the security bits of operations from the current 80+ bits to over 120 bits.

EIP-2935: To accommodate the arrival of stateless clients, this proposal suggests storing historical block hash values as part of the block processing logic in the state. By achieving this through contract storage, EIP-2935 allows for a soft transition without impacting block hash logic. Layer 2 networks will be able to leverage longer historical data and query storage contracts directly.

EIP-7549: This proposal aims to improve the efficiency of the Casper client. It achieves this by reducing the number of pairings required for consensus validation. Specifically, it removes one of the three elements in the Casper client proof message: the committee index. By removing this element from the proof message, it is now possible to more efficiently aggregate consensus votes into a block, increasing the number of votes per block from 2 epochs to 8 epochs.

EIP-7623: The proposal to increase the cost of call data outlined in EIP-7623 is one of the most impactful upgrades (especially for Layer 2 networks). The proposal aims to adjust the cost of call data to address the discrepancy between average block size (100 kb) and maximum block size (7.15 MB). This will not affect regular users but will involve transactions primarily used for data publication. The cost increase will be achieved through a base fee that depends on the Gas fee proportion spent on call data operations: this can be accomplished by reducing block size to accommodate more "Data Blobs" or by increasing the Gas limit.

EIP-7685: Introduces a framework for storing requests triggered by smart contracts. This allows validator operations controlled by smart contracts to delegate management operations to the smart contract, reducing the need for intermediaries.

EIP-7840: Introduces a method to "dynamically adjust the target and maximum 'data Blob' per block for each block" through a "blobSchedule" object, instead of passing all values through an API.

This upgrade sends a clear signal for Ethereum. We know these upgrades have been scheduled long ago and are not a response to recent criticism. Nevertheless, this upgrade focuses on making the Ethereum network more secure, improving Ethereum accounts, and expanding the processing capabilities of 'data Blobs,' which aligns with some of the most critical development needs.

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