Ethereum Pectra Upgrade Date Set for May 7, Promising Significant Improvements

• Pectra promises to improve staking and usability.
• Ethereum successfully tests Pectra on the Hoodi network.
• Pectra hard fork scheduled for May 7th.

Ethereum developers have announced May 7 as the expected date for the launch of the long-awaited Pectra upgrade on the mainnet. This announcement marks a slight delay compared to the initial plan, which called for the implementation to take place in late April.

The choice of this new date in May occurred during a core developer meeting last Thursday. The meeting followed a successful test on the Hoodi testnet, paving the way for this important step.

The meeting focused on discussing the progress of the Pectra hard fork, which promises to be one of the most impactful updates to the Ethereum network software. Among the innovations are 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) designed to enhance the functionality and usability of staking on the platform.

Some notable changes include improved user experience through EIP-7702, which simplifies wallet usage and account management. Additionally, EIP-7251 proposes raising the staking limit for validators from 32 to 2.048 ETH, and EIP-7691 seeks to expand the network’s processing capacity by increasing the number of blobs, a significant step forward for the scalability of rollup systems.

While the May 7 date is set, developers stress that adjustments to the schedule are still possible depending on the results of additional testing and any potential setbacks. At a previous meeting in March, it was suggested that, barring major issues, Pectra could be activated on the mainnet approximately 30 days after the Hoodi test, which is scheduled for late April.

The delay to early May provides the teams involved and stakeholders with additional time to prepare for the transition. At the time of publication, the price of ETH was trading at $1.773,82, down 1% over the past 24 hours.