Ethereum (ETH) just dropped a massive network update today called Pectra, the blockchain’s most ambitious upgrade since the infamous Merge back in 2022, which marked the transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS)
Activated exactly at 10:05:11 UTC on May 7, 2025, at epoch 364032, the network stabilized impressively fast, finalizing within roughly 13 minutes.
Pectra is live on Ethereum mainnet!
– Smart account wallet UX features now active
– L2 scaling data storage blobs increased by 2x
– Validator UX improvements liveCommunity members will continue to monitor for any issues over the next 24 hours.
— Ethereum.org (@ethereum) May 7, 2025
The upgrade comes a few days following a series of proposals from co-founder Vitalik Buterin, who suggested the Ethereum Virtual Machine should be replaced with RISC-V architecture.
Pectra Key Benefits Explained
This isn’t another incremental tweak for the network. Pectra came in heavy, packed with eleven Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), the most the network has ever bundled into a single update. Additionally, the community coordinated the update across all major client software like Grandine, Prysm, Teku, and execution clients including go-ethereum and Nethermind.
At the core of Pectra is EIP-7702, arguably the biggest shift seen in wallet tech: It transforms ordinary externally owned accounts (EOAs) into something called “smart wallets”, allowing users to bundle multiple transactions into one and significantly reducing gas costs.
Additionally, wallets can now handle gasless transactions and even enable payments for gas fees using tokens other than ETH, substantially boosting practical crypto usability. This is not anything new. Solana rolled out a Smart Wallet prototype nearly a year ago through Squads Labs.
Moreover, there’s now a feature for custom recovery mechanisms, potentially spelling an end to the infamous “lost crypto keys” problem. In short, Ethereum’s usability just got significantly less frustrating for everyday users.
How it all Started
The Pectra upgrade builds on the earlier Dencun update from March 2024, which laid initial foundations with proto-danksharding via EIP-4844.
Today’s upgrade addresses significant performance bottlenecks, improves overall network usability, and strategically positions the blockchain for future upgrades like Fusaka, expected to introduce innovative technologies such as PeerDAS.
While there are many more EIPs and are more complex, here are the top 3 highlights:
- EIP-7702 introduces smart wallet features to regular wallets, enabling transaction bundling, third-party gas sponsorship, and social recovery—boosting efficiency and user security.
- EIP-7251 raises the validator cap from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, streamlining large-scale staking but raising concerns about increased centralization by favoring major validators.
- EIP-7691 doubles Ethereum’s blob storage capacity, improving Layer 2 rollup performance with lower fees and faster transactions, advancing scalability across networks like Arbitrum and Optimism.
The ETH price surged to $1,823, a 3.4% increase in the last 24 hours, as per CoinGecko.
