Ethereum developers aim for May 7 mainnet deployment of Pectra upgrade

Ethereum developers have locked in May 7 as the target date for the Pectra upgrade to go live on the mainnet, slightly delayed from prior discussions that estimated late April as the update time.

The latest decision to finalize the May date was made during a core developers'  call on Thursday, following a successful test on the Hoodi testnet .

This call brought together key contributors to discuss the progress and scheduling of the Pectra hard fork, the most significant update to the Ethereum network in terms of software changes.

The upgrade includes 11 modifications via Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), which aim to improve the network's efficiency, usability and staking capabilities.

While May 7 is the planned date, it’s worth noting that such timelines can still shift based on further testing or unforeseen issues, as seen with previous delays in the Pectra rollout.

The test involved various code changes introduced by Pectra, such as improvements to the user experience in crypto wallets and account abstraction through EIP-7702, raising the upper limit for validator stakes from 32 to 2,048 ETH via EIP-7251, and increasing the maximum blob count to advance rollup scalability through EIP-7691.

Developers had previously indicated in a meeting that if no major issues arise, Pectra could be activated on the mainnet about 30 days after the Hoodi test, which was in late April.

Shifting the mainnet deployment to early May gives stakeholders and client teams additional preparation time.