Ethereum Developers Have Activated Pectra on the Mainnet

Ethereum developers launched the Pectra upgrade early Tuesday, marking a major step forward for the network.

The Pectra upgrade to the Ethereum mainnet launched early Tuesday, bringing together 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals.

The upgrade, which began around epoch 364,032 at 6:05 a.m. ET with the activation of EIP-7777, is the most comprehensive of the year. It follows several hitches and setbacks during testing on the Holesky, Sepolia, and Hoodi testnets.

After reporting issues with validator performance on Holesky earlier in the year, and a successful deployment on Hoodi in March 2025, the Pectra upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet marks the final stage in rolling out the update.

The upgrade also brings together several proposals that will reshape the Ethereum network, building on the proto-danksharding release in the form of the Dncun chain at the start of 2024 and setting the scene for even bigger changes ahead, such as the introduction of Verkle Trees and PeerDAS with the Fusaka chain later this year.

The main EIPs covered by the Pectra upgrade are as follows:

Pectra brings together several proposals that will help to optimize the performance of the Ethereum network and address some of the key pain points for stakers, developers, and users.

The main goal of the Pectra upgrade is to optimize the performance of the Ethereum network and address some of the key pain points for stakers, developers, and users.

Several proposals covered by the Pectra upgrade are designed to optimize the performance of the Ethereum network and address some of the key pain points for stakers, developers, and users.

This includes EIP-7702, which brings smart contract logic into user wallets, enabling users to group several actions—such as a swap, an approval, and an interaction with a protocol—into one transaction, saving gas and time. It also enables dapps to cover gas fees, facilitating freemium experiences, and introduces social recovery functions to allow users to regain access to wallets through trusted friends.

Aiming to reduce the administrative overhead for large stakers and improve the efficiency of the network, EIP-7251 increases the validator cap from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, enabling big stakers to merge smaller validators, while smaller operators will also benefit by having fewer nodes to manage. However, this move has also drawn criticism for potentially contributing to centralization.

Another proposal covered by the Pectra upgrade is EIP-7691, which focuses on optimizing the performance of Layer 2 networks by increasing the blob limits per block from 3 to 6 (target) and 6 to 9 (max). Blobs are used by rollups, such as Optimism and Arbitrum, to help them reduce fees by up to 100x and scale dapps more effectively. As more users shift to Layer 2 networks, this upgrade will help developers keep pace with the growing demand.