Ethereum Activates Major Pectra Upgrade

The Pectra upgrade, the largest in Ethereum’s history by the number of proposals, has been activated on the mainnet at epoch 364,032.

upgrade in progress . . .

activating Pectra @ epoch 364032 // 10:05:11 UTC

— Ethereum.org (@ethereum) May 7, 2025

Pectra includes a series of enhancements aimed at improving the convenience and efficiency of Ethereum. The extensive upgrade contains 11 key EIP. One significant innovation is the addition of smart contract functionality to wallets, simplifying their use and recovery.

The implementation of the hard fork in the Sepolia testnet (consensus layer) and Holesky testnet (execution layer) led to disruptions. In the former, additional complications were caused by malicious interference.

In Holesky, even after restoring network functionality, it was impossible to verify the upgrade’s functionality regarding validator exits.

Developers decided to create a new long-term testnet to complete the hard fork verification. The test network, named Hoodi, was launched on March 17, with the update deployed in the same month.

According to the Ethereum team, the main features implemented during the upgrade are active on the mainnet, including:

• smart contract wallets;
• doubling the data storage capacity for L2 network scaling;
• improvements to the user interface for validators.

Pectra is live on Ethereum mainnet!

— Smart account wallet UX features now active
— L2 scaling data storage blobs increased by 2x
— Validator UX improvements live

Community members will continue to monitor for any issues over the next 24 hours.

— Ethereum.org (@ethereum) May 7, 2025

Developers will continue to monitor for potential issues due to the hard fork activation over the next 24 hours.

As predicted by Parataxis Capital co-founder Edward Chen, the extensive upgrade did not “boost” Ethereum’s price. Quotes have risen by 2.5% over the past 24 hours, while Bitcoin gained 3% during the same period (CoinGecko).

The next Ethereum hard fork, named Fusaka, is scheduled for the second half of the year (September-October). Developers have already excluded changes to the EVM codebase for implementing the Ethereum Object Format functionality from the upcoming update.

One reason for abandoning this option was Vitalik Buterin’s proposal to transition the Ethereum virtual machine to a new architecture.