Ethereum's Pectra upgrade goes live, retooling the network for greater usability and scale

Ethereum hit a major milestone today with the successful activation of the long-awaited Pectra upgrade, a hard fork that fuses the Prague and Electra changesets

Ethereum is set for a major upgrade today with the activation of the Pectra hard fork, fusing the Prague and Electra changesets into a single, forward-looking update.

This isn’t just another technical patch – it’s a pivotal step in Ethereum’s ongoing transformation from an experimental smart contract platform into a full-fledged, user-friendly infrastructure layer.

Pectra brings together 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), ranging from account abstraction (EIP-3074) which lets regular wallets function like smart contracts – to PeerDAS, a data availability solution that improves the economics of Layer 2 rollups.

Most notably, EIP-7702 and EIP-7251 introduce major quality-of-life changes: the ability for users to pay gas in non-ETH tokens and a dramatic increase in the validator stake cap from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH.

The result? Ethereum is no longer just scaling vertically through internal upgrades – it’s inviting a new generation of external projects to build horizontally across the ecosystem.

But the Layer 2 race isn’t confined to Ethereum. In fact, as the infrastructure matures, attention is also turning to other ecosystems struggling with their own growing pains. Enter Solana and the emerging solution that could become its most significant expansion yet.

While Ethereum’s upgrades aim to make it more efficient and accessible, Solana has been struggling with performance bottlenecks caused by the rapid influx of users.

This is quickly funneling into demand for Layer 2 solutions on Ethereum, and now attention appears to be turning to other ecosystems struggling with their own growing pains.

One ecosystem that has been open about needing more scalability is Solana, which is known for its high-speed transactions and low fees.

However, as TRUMP tokens and Pump.fun trading platforms continue to drive user volumes higher, Solana’s throughput limits are becoming a major point of contention.

But despite these challenges, institutional faith in Solana remains strong. Canadian investment firm SOL Strategies recently added $18.25 million worth of SOL to its holdings for the period ending June 30.

DeFi Development Corp also purchased an additional $11.2M SOL bringing their total SOL to approximately $58.5M.

This vote of confidence echoes Solana’s narrative: a high-speed, low-fee alternative to Ethereum with unmatched throughput.

However, for Solana to truly enter the next stage of the crypto market and compete with Ethereum’s Layer 2 playbook, it may need its own version of that strategy.

And that’s exactly what Solaxy ($SOLX) aims to offer – a full-fledged Layer 2 built on Solana, designed to solve its congestion problems and unlock its next growth phase.

Pectra positions Ethereum as a modular foundation for scaling solutions, and similarly, Solaxy introduces a new framework for Solana to evolve beyond its current architecture.

Through rollups and transaction bundling, Solaxy can reduce on-chain load while preserving Solana’s speed, creating a more stable and affordable environment for users and developers alike.

The parallel is hard to ignore. As Ethereum leans into smart account flexibility and validator consolidation, Solana’s Solaxy opens the door to similar improvements in scalability and ecosystem resilience – without needing to compromise its base-layer performance.

Both upgrades reflect a shared understanding that Layer 1s cannot succeed alone in the next crypto cycle and just as Ethereum’s future is now inseparable from its rollup ecosystem, Solana’s long-term viability may hinge on the success of Layer 2 projects like Solaxy.

While Solaxy is focused on improving Solana’s infrastructure, its ambitions extend far beyond one chain. The protocol is being designed as a multi-chain Layer 2, integrating wrapped assets and staking functionalities from both Ethereum and Solana.

This means Solaxy could become one of the first major platforms to bridge the two dominant smart contract ecosystems in real-time.

With Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade laying the groundwork for more interoperable and user-friendly dApps, Solaxy’s vision of cross-chain NFT support, shared liquidity pools and seamless DAO governance seems right on time.

What’s striking is how naturally Solaxy complements the spirit of Pectra – not by replicating Ethereum’s changes, but by mirroring its intent.

Where Ethereum opens up account abstraction and data efficiency, Solaxy adds speed, affordability and low-latency interactions across networks.

Both are converging on the same goal: a decentralized ecosystem that is both powerful and easy to use.

With Pectra launching today and major validators like Union Square Ventures positioning for long-term exposure to Ethereum at 2,048 ETH, the spotlight is shifting to the mid-layer projects that will link these disparate components together.

Unlike speculative meme coins or single-function dApps, Solaxy is offering a solution to a known issue, backed by real development progress and technical