Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade Set for May Following Technical Hurdles

Pectra, one of Ethereum’s largest upgrades since transitioning to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism in 2022, is now set to hit the Ethereum mainnet on May 7.

Originally scheduled for a March 2025 release, Pectra was delayed due to finality issues on the Holesky testnet, but has been running without major incident on the Hoodi testnet that was spun up in response to the testnet issues. The upgrade also experienced a minor issue on the Sepolia testnet in early March, but it was later identified and fixed. 

Ethereum developers utilize testnets to trial upgrades before implementing them on the mainnet. Despite initial issues, Ethereum’s Holesky testnet did eventually reach finality on March 10.

The finalized date for Pectra, which was confirmed on a Thursday call for Ethereum developers, follows a previous proposal for an April 30 launch.

“We’ll go ahead and lock in May 7 for Pectra on mainnet,” said Ethereum Foundation researcher Alex Stokes. “Happy Pectra everyone.” 

Pectra’s upgrade is set to bring about a handful of notable changes for Ethereum, including boosting the network’s scalability and increasing validator staking limits from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH.

However, for active participants on Ethereum’s network, the most recognizable change may be the introduction of account abstraction, which will allow users to pay for gas or transaction fees with multiple tokens (like stablecoins) in addition to ETH. 

The upgrade will also clear a path to improved wallet functionality for users, including potential implementations of social recovery—a more user-friendly restoration process for lost wallet seed phrases. 

Ethereum (ETH) has not been spared amid a market dive following President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcements on Wednesday. The second-largest crypto asset by market cap is down 6.3% in the last 24 hours to $1,773, while Bitcoin has fallen 5.4% to $81,725.

Prediction market traders on MYRIAD don’t anticipate a short-term rebound for ETH, either, currently forecasting an 84% chance that Ethereum finishes Friday still below the $1,850 mark. (Disclosure: MYRIAD is owned by Decrypt’s parent company, DASTAN.)

Edited by Andrew Hayward