The upgrading of the Pectra network is planned to activate on Ethereum Testnets!
Pectra overview
He will be online on Holesky at the time 115968 (February 24 21:55 UTC) then on Sepolia in Epoch 222464 (March 5, 7:29 UTC). The versions of the Pectra Testnet client are listed below. Once the two testnets have managed to upgrade, an era of Mainnet activation will be chosen.
Pectra follows last year Dencun upgrade. It introduces features to increase Ethereum accounts, improve the validator’s experience, take charge of L2 scaling, and more!
This article explores these three main improvements in detail. For a more complete overview, see Ethereum.org guide on upgrade.
From eoas to intelligent accounts
EIP-7702 represents a major step towards the generalized abstraction of accounts, allowing users to improve their accounts belonging to the outside (Eoas) with intelligent contract features.
This hybrid approach combines the simplicity of EOA with the programmability of contractual accounts. In practice, it allows:
- Transactions prizeswhere several operations run atomically in a single transaction. More separate transactions to “approve” and “swap”!
- Gas sponsorshipwhich allows others to pay the transaction costs. This is particularly useful when you want to transform from an account that does not have ethn.
- Alternative authenticationWhich means a lot Material safety modules (HSMS) in phones today can be used to authorize account operations via technologies such as pass keys.
- Expenditure checkswhich can limit the number of tokens that a specific application can spend or cap daily outings from a portfolio, improve safety.
- Recovery mechanismswhich offers different options to protect their assets, without migrating to a new account.
To use EIP-7702, an EOA signs an authorization pointing to a specific delegation address of which he wishes to execute the code. Once defined, the account wins the capacities of the new code (for example, lots, sponsorship, authentication logic, etc.). Since the choice of a delegation target gives a great control, EIP-7702 applies several security checks:
- Channel specific delegations: By default, a delegation is only valid on a specific chain ID, preventing the same authorization from being used on different networks.
- Unrelated delegations: Authorizations can be linked to the current nonce of the account, automatically invalidate them once the nuncio increases.
- Revocability: The owner of the EOA can always create another EIP-7702 authorization which revokes or replaces the existing delegation code, preventing permanent locking in the event of a problem.
For a deeper dive in the way it works, see @ Lightclient’s Devcon Talk on the subject.
Validator UX improvements
Three new EIPs in Pectra improve the validator’s experience: 7251,, 7002 And 6110.
The first, EIP-7251, raises the maximum balance on which a validator can receive rewards from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, through an update of membership of the type of withdrawal.
For the smallest spots, this allows an automatic reward composition. Previously, all the awards earned beyond the deposit of 32 ETH of a validator would not count for their active stake. Stakers who wanted to play more than 32 ETH could only do it by fixed increments of 32 ETH, based on paneling pools for everything else. With the EIP-7251, existing and new validators can be configured to earn awards on all their participation, until 2048 ETH by Validator.
This EIP also allows the largest operators to consolidate several validators, by merging those who have shared withdrawal identification information. This reduces the requirement of bandwidth for the network as a whole. To understand the mechanics in detail, look at this conversation from Paul Harris de Teku.
The EIP-7002 also extends the capacities of the validators, this time by introducing triggers of the execution layer. Before this EIP, only the active signature key of a validator could trigger an outing. Now, if an Ethereum address is defined as a withdrawal diploma, this can also force an outing. This reduces the assumptions of confidence in delegation circles, because the owner of the funds – whether it is a human in control of an EOA or an intelligent contract managed by DAO – can always launch an exit without trust.
Finally, the EIP-6110 removes a persistent vestige of Ethereum Pré-Fumer: the delay between the validator deposits and their addition to the queue of deposit. Pre-fusion, the chain of tags had to wait until 2048 blocks before processing the validators’ deposits to take into account the potential reorganizations of evidence of work. It is no longer necessary!
With EIP-6110, deposit processing delays now go from around 9 hours to around 13 minutes. Teku engineers Lucas Saldanha and Stefan Bratanov have covered details of EIP-7002 and EIP-6110 in their Devcon Sea Tales.
Blob Scale .oo
The latest major change of Pectra is EIP-7691, increasing the blob capacity of Ethereum by 50%!
Blobs, introduced into the Dencun upgradeThe storage of ephemeral data that L2 can use to submit compressed transaction data and evidence to Ethereum L1. Since its posting, they have reduced the costs L1 for L2S by 10-100x, which has led to much cheaper L2 User transactions.
The Mainnet Ethereum currently supports on average 3 blobs per block, with a maximum of 6 to adapt to periods of high demand. With EIP-7691, these figures will increase to an average of 6 and maximum of 9.
Contrary to CalldataWho the nodes store indefinitely, the blobs are cut from the network after 4096 eras (~ 18 days). This limits the amount of disk space they can use. The binding constraint for the Blubs is rather the bandwidth, because the blobs must be drooled on the peer layer of Ethereum. To compensate for the increase in the bandwidth caused by the EIP-7691, Pectra also introduces EIP-7623, which caps the size of the worst of a block.
To continue to scale the flow of Ethereum data without a corresponding increase in bandwidth requirements, we must go from a world where each node stores each blob to one where the nodes only store Together and taste the network to check the remaining Blob data. Good news: the work to support this is already underway! Francesco of the research team of the Ethereum Foundation described this roadmap on a scale in its Devcon Keynote.
Pectra specifications
The list of changes introduced in Pectra can be found in EIP-7600. For reference, they are:
In addition, a complete Python specification for the modifications made to the execution and specifications of the consensus layer can be found in the following versions:
Finally, Pectra also introduces modifications to the engine API used for communication between consensus and execution layer nodes. These are specified in the Prague.md repository file.
Pectra activation
The upgrading of the Pectra network will activate on Holesky and Sepolia as follows:
In addition, Pectra has already been activated on Ephemery, a jealous test that resets every 28 days. Learn more about this here.
Sorts of customers
The versions of the following customers are suitable for upgrading Pectra on both Holesky and Sepolia. Other versions will activate the support on Mainnet. Once these are published, another ad will be made on this blog.
SEPOLIA & HOLESKY SORMES consensus layer
During the execution of a validator, the consensus layer tag and the validator’s client must be updated.
Note: the Grand customer Open-Opt in April 2024. Since then, it has been included in all Pectra test efforts alongside other customers.
Sepolia execution layer & holesky sormes
Faq
How do Ethereum network upgrade?
Upgrades of the Ethereum network require an explicit opt-in of node operators on the network. While customer developers reach a consensus on what EIPs are included in an upgrade, they are not the ultimate decision -makers of its adoption.
For the upgrade to be put online, validators and non-stake nodes must manually update their software to take charge of the changes in the introduced protocol.
If they use an Ethereum customer which is not updated to the latest version (listed above), on the Fork block, it will disconnect improved peers, leading to a fork on the network. In this scenario, each subset of network nodes will only remain connected with those who share their status (no) upgraded.
Although most Ethereum upgrades are not thwarted and cases leading to forks have been rare, the option for node operators to coordinate on the management of an upgrade or not is a Key characteristic of Ethereum governance.
For a more exhaustive overview of the Ethereum governance process, see This speech by Tim Beiko.
As a user of Maineum MAINET or USTH, is there anything I have to do?
In short, no.
This announcement only concerns Ethereum Testnets: Holesky and Sepolia. Another announcement will be made for the activation of Pectra on the Mainnet Ethereum, but even then, users of Ethereum MAINNET and $ ETH holders should not have to take measures.
If you want to look at the online upgrade on Holesky, Ethstaker organizes a Online visualization party!
As a non-adoption Sepolia or Holesky Node operator, what should I do?
To be compatible with upgrading on one or the other testnet, update customers of the execution layer of your node and consensus to the versions listed in the table above.
Inasmuch as Sepolia or Holesky Staker, what should I do?
To be compatible with upgrading on one or the other testnet, update customers of the execution layer of your node and consensus to the versions listed in the table above. Make sure your tag and validator client are updated.
As an non-sepolia or Holesky node operator or staker, what should I do?
Nothing for the moment. Other announcements will be made for the activation of Pecctra on Mainnet.
As a developer of applications or tools, what should I do?
Review the EIP included in Pectra to determine if and how they affect your project — There are many new exciting features that are introduced on the execution and consensus layers!
As a security researcher, what should I do?
Keep an eye on an article on the Bug de Pectra bonus competition future 👀
Why “Pectra”?
The upgrades to the execution layer follow the names of the city of Devcon, and those of the Consensus layer use the names of stars. “Pectra” is the combination of Prague, the site of Devcon IV and Electra, a giant-white-white star in the constellation of the bull.
Original cover image by Julia Soloninawith modifications of Tomo Saito.
