Pectra Upgrade: The Largest Upgrade in Ethereum's History

The Pectra upgrade is another significant event for Ethereum following the Dencun upgrade in March 2024, expected to officially launch in the first quarter of 2025. This upgrade combines two independent upgrades, Prague and Electra, aimed at addressing issues of scalability, security, and user experience for Ethereum.

Main Improvements

EIP-7702: Account Abstraction Wallet Innovation

EIP-7702 allows externally owned accounts ( EOAs ) to temporarily act as smart contract wallets in transactions, enabling EOAs to perform complex operations. Key features include:

• Temporarily allocate smart contract code to EOA in a single transaction.
• Achieve batch processing and complex transaction instructions
• Introduce a new permission management mechanism
• Support for trading sponsorship feature

This improvement will bring users richer features and a better experience, potentially driving the emergence of new applications.

EIP-3074: Delegation of Control of EOA

EIP-3074 allows the delegation of control of EOA to smart contracts, enabling EOAs to execute more complex transaction schemes. It achieves this by introducing the AUTH and AUTHCALL opcodes.

• Multisignature
• Batch and Sponsored Trading
• Key Recovery
• More accessible deposits for centralized exchanges

EIP-7623: Optimize calldata costs

The proposal aims to reduce the block size by increasing the calldata cost, thereby:

• Improve the cost-effectiveness of Ethereum
• Optimize Layer 2 solution performance
• Reduce the cost of publishing data for the sorter

EOF( Ethereum object format ) related upgrades

EOF introduces a new smart contract format, aiming to:

• Improve the readability and manageability of contracts
• Reduce errors and vulnerabilities
• Improve EVM efficiency

EIP-7594(PeerDAS): Data Availability Sampling

PeerDAS ensures data distribution and availability by leveraging existing P2P components, with main features including:

• Enhance scalability and efficiency
• Improve data availability
• Improve network resilience

This improvement will benefit the development of DeFi and the innovation of emerging applications, while also positively impacting the ZK Prover network.

EIP-7251: Increase Validator Staking Limit

The proposal suggests increasing the validator staking limit from 32 Ether to 2048 Ether, aiming to:

• Reduce the number of validators
• Enhance economic security
• Reduce operating costs

Impact and Outlook

The Pectra upgrade will bring comprehensive performance improvements and feature enhancements to Ethereum, potentially driving a new wave of innovation and application development. However, some improvements, such as EIP-7251, remain controversial, and the community has concerns about its potential impact on the network's decentralization.

As the upgrade approaches, the Ethereum ecosystem may usher in a new round of development opportunities, particularly in areas such as modularity, chain abstraction, and AA wallets. Investors and developers should closely monitor relevant progress to seize potential market opportunities.