Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade Nears Mainnet Launch with New Date Set for May 7

The highly anticipated Pectra upgrade will launch on the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet on May 7, 2025, after overcoming a series of technical challenges and delays in the testnet phase. 

Ethereum developers announced the date during the All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC) meeting on April 3, 2025.

Pectra Upgrade Countdown Begins

The upgrade was initially slated for a tentative mainnet launch on April 30. However, Ethereum developers have postponed the launch by one week.

“We’ll go ahead and lock in May 7 for Pectra on mainnet,” Ethereum Foundation researcher Alex Stokes said.

In preparation for this, Stokes confirmed that client releases will be made available by April 21, ensuring that all users have the necessary updates and tools ahead of the mainnet launch. On April 23, a detailed blog post outlining the Pectra mainnet will be published.

Ethereum Developers Consensus Layer Meeting 154

The Pectra upgrade will introduce 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to enhance various aspects of the network. Notably, three EIPs are dedicated to improving the validator experience. 

The first is EIP-7251. This will increase the staking limit for validators from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH per validator. This change aims to enhance capital efficiency for large stakers and staking pools.

“This simplifies the staking experience, allowing users to manage multiple validators under one node instead of several,” an analyst remarked.

Moreover, EIP-7002 introduces execution-layer triggerable withdrawals, giving validators more control. Meanwhile, EIP-6110 reduces the deposit processing delay from about 9 hours to just 13 minutes.

The upgrade will also include EIP-7702, a major step toward account abstraction. It allows Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) to gain smart contract functionality while maintaining simplicity. This enables features like transaction batching, gas sponsorship (where third parties pay fees), passkey-based authentication, spending controls, and asset recovery mechanisms.

Finally, the upgrade increases blob capacity through EIP-7691. In addition, EIP-7623 helps manage the increased bandwidth requirements. These updates aim to make Ethereum more scalable, efficient, and user-friendly.

It is worth noting that the road to the mainnet launch has not been without hurdles. Two previous tests on the Holesky and Sepolia test networks failed to finalize properly. However, Pectra achieved full finalization on the Hoodi testnet on March 26, marking a significant milestone toward the successful deployment of the upgrade.

Despite the technical progress, ETH continues to face market challenges. 

Ethereum Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto

Data from BeInCrypto shows that ETH dropped 4.8% over the past week, with weekly losses extending to 17.1%. At the time of writing, the altcoin was trading at $1,822, reflecting a small daily gain of 0.8%.