Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade will bring smart accounts, higher staking limits and improved scalability through key EIPs, simplifying user experience and institutional staking.
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 really mean?
Pectra is scheduled to go live on Ethereum mainnet at the state of epoch 364032, May 7, 2025, at around 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.
