Ethereum’s ‘Pectra’ network upgrade goes live: What to expect
Ethereum developers have activated the network’s Pectra upgrade, bringing smart accounts, higher staking limits and improved scalability through key EIPs.
Ethereum — the network that unleashed smart contracts on the world — moves on to the next chapter with today’s Pectra upgrade, but what does it mean?
Pectra went live on the Ethereum mainnet at the start of epoch 364032, May 7, 2025, at about 10:00 am UTC. The three main Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) included are EIP-7702, EIP-7251 and EIP-7691.
EIP-7702 allows externally owned accounts to act as smart contracts and cover gas expenses (transaction fees) and payments in tokens that are not Ether (ETH). EIP-7251 increases the validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, which makes operations for large stakers easier and simpler.
