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Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Margaux Nijkerk

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ETHEREUM’S SECOND BUGGY TESTNET FOR PECTRA DEVELOPS ISSUES, LEADING TO CALLS FOR A DELAY?: Ethereum developers on Wednesday initially celebrated a seemingly successful test of Pectra, the blockchain’s most significant upgrade since 2024, on the Sepolia test network. However, hours after the test, Sepolia began to encounter errors.

It was the second buggy test for the highly anticipated Pectra upgrade, which is designed to improve Ethereum's efficiency, user experience, and validator system. The issues have led to calls from some developers that the upgrade be delayed. Wednesday’s Sepolia test (March 5) was expected to be the final step before Pectra’s launch on Ethereum’s mainnet. Initially, the test appeared to succeed, but later, developers noticed empty blocks being added to the chain. The Ethereum Foundation attributed the issue to "an issue with Sepolia's permissioned deposit contract," which "prevented many execution layer clients from including transactions in blocks." In other words, the problem stemmed from a misconfiguration specific to the Sepolia test, rather than a flaw with Pectra itself.

Despite this, the test has raised concerns about whether Pectra has undergone sufficient testing. The previous test on Ethereum’s Holesky testnet also ran into configuration issues, that time caused by misconfigured validators.

"We're now encountering issues with Sepolia after the Pectra integration test, specifically related to the testnet's configuration and a limited number of full nodes participating in the network during the test window leading to a lack of transactions in some blocks," the Foundation said in a statement. "The issues are being actively investigated by the EF engineering team and we'll provide a follow-up email with more details and an update on the status of the Pectra integration test."

The issues come as the Pectra test has been highly anticipated by the Ethereum community, with many hopeful that the upgrade will finally bring about a seamless transition to the next stage of the blockchain. However, the recent issues have led some developers to call for a delay to the upgrade, in order to avoid any further bugs or problems.

"I think it's best to just land Pectra later this week/early next week and keep Sepolia running, and then we'll have a better shot at a smooth launch," said developer Anish A.

The Pectra upgrade is a crucial step in Ethereum's development, and the community will be closely watching to see how the issues are resolved and whether the upgrade ultimately launches as planned.

ETHEREUM FOUNDATION PICKS NEW CO-EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS AS AYA MIYAGUCHI BECOMES PRESIDENT: The Ethereum Foundation (EF), the non-profit organization that supports the development and research of the Ethereum blockchain, shared in a blog post on Wednesday that they have selected Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz Stańczak as their new co-executive directors.

The news follows the departure of Aya Miyaguchi to become the EF’s new president. The leadership shake-up follows intense debate among the community about the EF’s role in the ecosystem, as some have blamed the organization and its leadership for the blockchain’s token ether (ETH) price lagging behind other cryptocurrencies, while the blockchain attracted for the first time less new developers than its competitor Solana.

The non-profit organization also announced that its engineers have successfully integrated the Pectra code on the Sepolia testnet, which is a significant milestone in the development of the blockchain. The Pectra upgrade is designed to improve Ethereum's efficiency, user experience, and validator system.

"The successful integration of Pectra on Sepolia marks a crucial step towards deploying this fundamental upgrade on the mainnet," the EF stated. "The Pectra upgrade is set to enhance several key aspects of the Ethereum network, including its efficiency, user experience, and validator system."

The Pectra upgrade is expected to be deployed on the mainnet later this year.

Also, ex-EF researcher Danny Ryan announced on Wednesday that he would be joining Etherealize, the new project aimed at bringing ETH to Wall Street.

"I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining Etherealize as Chief Integration Officer later this year to help build the next chapter of Web3 with a focus on capital markets and scaling DeFi,'' Ryan shared on Twitter.

Etherealize is a project founded by ex-Goldman Sachs executives that aims to bridge the gap between traditional finance and decentralized finance (DeFi). The project is developing a new type of exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will be linked to DeFi protocols and will be regulated