Pectra Upgrade
Enhancements to Ethereum's Performance and User Experience
The Pectra upgrade includes several key EIPs such as EIP-7251, EIP-7702, and EIP-7002. These improvements aim to optimize Ethereum staking management, simplify account interactions, and lay the foundation for more complex operations.
Pectra Upgrade
Pectra Mainnet Fork NFT
Free Non-transferable NFT

What is the Pectra Upgrade?
Pectra follows last year's Dencun upgrade. It introduces features to augment Ethereum accounts, improve the validator experience, support L2 scaling, and more. The name "Pectra" is a combination of Prague and Electra. Prague represents the upgrade to the execution layer, named after the city where Ethereum's developer conference (Devcon 4) was held, while Electra symbolizes the upgrade to the consensus layer, named after a star corresponding to the letter "E." The core aspects of the Pectra upgrade include: increasing the individual validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH; allowing externally owned accounts (EOA) to temporarily authorize the execution of smart contract code within a single transaction, supporting features such as batch transactions and gas payment delegation; and enabling direct control of validator exits via execution layer addresses, eliminating the need for pre-signed BLS keys.
Related EIPs for this upgrade
How do Ethereum network upgrades work?
Ethereum network upgrades require explicit opt-in from node operators on the network. While client developers come to consensus on what EIPs are included in an upgrade, they are not the ultimate deciders of its adoption.
For the upgrade to go live, validators and non-staking nodes must manually update their software to support the protocol changes being introduced.
If they use an Ethereum client that is not updated to the latest version, at the fork block, it will disconnect from upgraded peers, leading to a fork on the network. In this scenario, each subset of the network nodes will only stay connected with those who share their (un)upgraded status.
While most Ethereum upgrades are non-contentious and cases leading to forks have been rare, the option for node operators to coordinate on whether to support an upgrade or not is a key feature of Ethereum's governance.