Ethereum Pectra Upgrade to Go Live, Key Dates Announced

Ethereum 's highly anticipated Pectra upgrade is set to go live, with key testnet fork dates now announced. According to expectations, Pectra will first launch on the Holesky and Sepolia testnets before an official mainnet deployment is scheduled.

In a tweet, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko shared the expected dates for upgrading public Ethereum testnets: Holesky Testnet will fork at slot 3,710,976 on Monday, Feb. 24, 2025, at 9:55:12 p.m. UTC. Sepolia Testnet will fork at slot 7,118,848 on Wednesday, March 5, 2025, at 7:29:36 a.m. UTC.

If the Sepolia testnet fork goes smoothly, Ethereum developers will finalize the mainnet launch date during the March 6 All Core Developers (ACD) call, Beiko added.

Ethereum's Pectra Upgrade would introduce an array of speed and efficiency improvements to the second-largest blockchain, with the mainnet deployment planned for March.

About Pectra upgrade

Pectra combines eight major upgrades, or "Ethereum improvement proposals" (EIPs), into one. One of the most anticipated changes is EIP-7702, which aims to improve the wallet user experience. The upgrade would allow user wallets to be programmed in the same way as smart contracts are and is part of a larger goal of bringing account abstraction to Ethereum, which includes a number of features that make creating and using wallets easier.

Another widely awaited change, EIP-7251, raises the maximum amount validators can stake from 32 to 2,048 ETH.

Pectra was originally planned to be the largest update in Ethereum's history, with up to 20 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), but the fork has since been split in two. It is the chain's first major upgrade since Dencun was activated in 2024.

Preparations begin for Fusaka upgrade

As developers prepare to finalize Pectra and activate it on the mainnet, Ethereum developers have begun reviewing the EIPs suggested for inclusion in Fusaka. The Fusaka upgrade is expected to include two EIPs as a baseline: EOF and PeerDAS.

Other EIPs considered for Fusaka include EIP 7793, which proposes a new precompile that returns the index of the transaction being executed within the current block to improve support for encrypted mempools; EIP 7843, which proposes a new precompile that returns the corresponding slot number for the current block, which would also be useful for encrypted mempool applications and EIP 7870, which formalizes Ethereum's hardware and bandwidth recommendations for validating and full nodes.