Follow the WeChat official account: Lazy King Squirrel
Add V: jmay1160 Add QQ: 3788353562
The Ethereum Pectra upgrade was conducted on May 7 at 18:05, which is the first upgrade to the mainnet since the Cancun upgrade last March. It includes two collaborative updates: Prague execution layer hard fork and Electra consensus layer upgrade, and plans to incorporate 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). Several important EIPs in this upgrade include EIP-7251 (increasing the maximum effective balance of validators), EIP-7691 (Blob throughput improvement), EIP-7623 (increasing calldata fees), etc. This article analyzes and organizes the information.
Blob Upgrade: Entering the "Super Execution Layer"
At the ETHAsia 2025 event, Vitalik stated that the Pectra upgrade will increase Blob capacity from 3 to 6. Currently, 3 Blobs are about 375kb, generating 375 kb of data every 12 seconds, which is about 20kb per second, corresponding to a TPS of around 250. If Blob capacity increases to 6, TPS is expected to rise to 500. However, the Blob capacity expansion kit largely depends on the Fusaka upgrade expected to be implemented in the third or fourth quarter of this year. In an ideal scenario, the Fusaka upgrade could increase Blob capacity to 48; if DAS (Data Availability Sampling) is fully implemented, Blob capacity could reach 512, potentially increasing Ethereum L2 TPS to tens of thousands.
From on-chain data performance, since the Pectra upgrade, Blob submission levels have slightly fluctuated, rising to 3.6 shortly after the upgrade confirmation, but the overall level still hasn't reached half of the design level. However, Vitalik also mentioned in his speech that despite the rapid development of L2, improving L1 expansion kit is crucial for achieving censorship resistance and cross-L2 asset transfers. In the future, as L2 handles massive transaction processing, L1 Blobs will inevitably be under pressure, and under current market conditions, the continuous development of L2 is potentially feeding back to L1.
Validator Staking Limit Increased: "Simple Path"
EIP-7251 increases the maximum effective validator balance from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, allowing reward compound interest and validator consolidation. On Beaconchain data, current validator balances are concentrated in the 32-38 ETH range, with the highest balance reaching 70 ETH, far from the 2048 ETH hard cap.
In Ethereum liquid staking, Lido alone operates 286,000 validators, with an average validator allocation of 32 ETH. After validator expansion, it is expected to reduce by 64 times to around 4,500. This means institutional validators will manage fewer nodes, reducing hardware and maintenance costs. However, some Ethereum critics warn that this measure might exacerbate centralization and reduce the network's risk resistance.
Additionally, EIP-7002 in the Pectra upgrade allows triggering validator exits and withdrawals on the mainnet, reducing dependence on active keys of validator operators, which as "hot" keys are easily vulnerable to attacks. In Pectra, EIP-7002 enables withdrawal credentials to initiate validator exits, bypassing the need for consensus layer active keys.
What is Ethereum's Way Out?
Under the L2 expansion trend, Ethereum validators' income is facing multi-dimensional shrinkage. On one hand, Blob expansion and low on-chain activity reduce transaction fees; on the other hand, cryptocurrency price fluctuations decrease staking returns in USD terms. Consequently, Ethereum validators' daily income has dropped from $10 million to less than $5 million in the past year. The income reduction may impact staking network growth, and the implementation of EIP-7251 might accelerate validator scale reduction.
After the Pectra upgrade, Ethereum is priced at $1,912.29, with a daily increase of 4.38%. For users, the Pectra upgrade is not just a restart of Ethereum's price but also paves the way for future Ethereum ecosystem development. In recent articles, Vitalik hopes Ethereum becomes as simple as Bitcoin in five years, including simplifying the consensus layer, simplifying the execution layer, backward-compatible VM transition strategies, and simplification through shared protocol components. We also hope the Ethereum ecosystem continues to thrive like Bitcoin.
