Ethereum Activates Pectra Hard Fork

Ethereum has successfully completed the Pectra hard fork — a major upgrade to the blockchain network that has been in development for over a year. The update includes the implementation of 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs).

The Pectra hard fork went live on Ethereum’s mainnet on May 7, 2025, at approximately 10:00 UTC. The update is designed to enhance user experience, increase scalability, and improve validator efficiency.

It merges two parallel development tracks: “Prague” on the execution layer and “Electra” on the consensus layer. Together, they deliver a broad package of technical improvements aimed at both network performance and usability. Among the 11 EIPs included in the release, several stand out for their potential to reshape key aspects of Ethereum’s infrastructure:

• EIP-7702 introduces the ability for externally owned accounts (EOAs) to temporarily behave like smart contracts. This change enables greater wallet flexibility and allows users to pay transaction fees with tokens other than ETH.
• EIP-7251 raises the maximum staking limit for validators from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH. The proposal is intended to simplify node operations for institutional stakers and reduce the overhead burden on the network.
• EIP-7691 increases the amount of data that can be included in each block, helping to lower transaction fees across Layer 2 rollups and scalability solutions.

Despite the scale and technical merit of the upgrade, the market response has been relatively muted. According to CoinMarketCap, ETH rose just 5.27% over the past 24 hours, reaching $1,937 as of 11:00 (GMT+2) on April 8, 2025. Analysts suggest that while Pectra lays critical groundwork for future innovations, investors should temper expectations for short-term price action.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin recently unveiled a broader vision to simplify the architecture of Ethereum’s base layer. His proposal includes the transition to a new virtual machine and a set of radical protocol-level changes. For a deep dive into how decisions around Ethereum upgrades are made explore the CP Media’s feature on Ethereum governance .