In 2024, Ethereum made significant progress with the Dencun upgrade by introducing blob space, helping L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum Requests for Comments (ERCs) should we closely watch in 2025?
This article will highlight five Ethereum upgrades worth watching, some of which are confirmed to be launched in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but are drawing attention from notable supporters.
EIP-3074
A highly anticipated improvement in the Pectra upgrade is EIP-3074. Users can merge multiple transactions into one, and project teams can fund user transactions and pay their Gas fees, while also introducing a way to recover wallets in case users lose their private keys.
EIP-3074 introduces new Ethereum opcodes. This system will allow EOA users to authorize smart contracts to act on their behalf in a single transaction while maintaining security and control without permanently transferring private keys.
These new opcodes implement the following user-friendly utilities:
Transaction batching - batching multiple transactions (e.g., multiple token transfers) into a single operation.
Sponsored transactions - the ability for third parties to pay for transactions, opening new avenues for applications to cover Gas fees for their users.
Conditional transactions - complex transaction structures where multiple steps can be linked and executed conditionally, such as executing a transaction only when certain conditions are met, without needing a separate transaction for each step.
Meta-transactions - the ability to sign transactions that can be submitted by another party, such as signing transactions offline or from other interfaces without needing ETH as Gas.
Delegated Security - By allowing trusted callers to manage transactions, users can benefit from advanced security models, such as those involving multi-signature setups.
EIP-3074 is the next major step in the future development of the Ethereum account model. This is a short-term remedy before the rise of ERC-4337, but its level of user experience (UX) enhancement is significant.
EIP-7251
For validators holding large amounts of ETH, EIP-7251 is undoubtedly a more valuable proposal. It allows validators to earn extra staking rewards beyond the standard 32 ETH staking amount. Previously, any staked amount exceeding 32 ETH was idle. If validators wanted to stake additional ETH, they would have to set up a brand new validator node and invest another 32 ETH. With EIP-7251, validators can use a single validator node to stake all their held ETH.
This improvement is expected to attract large institutions to run their own validator nodes, further engaging in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, this proposal, as part of the Pectra upgrade, could enhance the Ethereum network's operational speed through the integration of validator nodes. For example, projects like Lido can reduce the number of active validator nodes and earn rewards on staked amounts exceeding 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses significant risk issues in validator node operations.
For example, if you want to earn rewards for running a validator node but do not want to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validator node operator and hand over the validator key to them (the validator key is used to validate and propose blocks). However, when you want to withdraw ETH, you must use the validator key to sign a "voluntary exit message" to complete the operation. If the operator deliberately obstructs by not signing this message or the validator key is compromised, your ETH could be maliciously withheld or even extorted.
EIP-7002 provides a solution that allows stakers to withdraw ETH simply by extracting keys. This improvement eliminates the risk of malicious operators refusing to sign exit messages and reduces the likelihood of ETH being held due to compromised validator keys.
ERC-7683
In recent years, intents have been one of the hot topics in DeFi. ERC-7683 is a token standard designed to directly address cross-chain interoperability issues and defines a shared structure for cross-chain intents. This standard "is like an order ticket that anyone can create and any resolver can fulfill."
ERC-7683 was first proposed in 2024, co-authored by Uniswap and Across Protocol. ERC-7683 aims to standardize Intents, bringing multiple benefits to the Ethereum ecosystem:
Unified Ethereum: Establishing a common standard for cross-chain operations across L2 and sidechains, supporting Ethereum's goal as the leading decentralized application platform.
Achieving interoperability: Standardizing order and settlement interfaces for seamless cross-chain execution.
Eliminating fragmentation: Providing a common framework for coordinating different systems to achieve smoother cross-chain operations.
Enhancing user experience: Providing users with a simplified, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interaction.
Increasing liquidity: Allowing DApps access to a cross-chain shared filling network, providing deeper liquidity.
Accelerating transactions: Reducing failure rates and speeding up transaction times by promoting competition among fillers.
Driving innovation: Changing the cross-chain landscape by fostering collaboration and encouraging innovative solutions on Ethereum.
ERC-7841
ERC-7841 is a novel token standard that proposes a low-level message format and API for applications to send messages to and receive messages from other chains.
ERC-7841 abstracts chain-specific logic from applications, meaning the same application can be deployed across multiple chains without changing the way it sends/receives messages.
ERC-7841 is a modular foundation that only specifies the information needed to route messages between applications. This allows specific message types (such as bridging or intent message types) to be flexibly built on a single interface, rather than for each message type.
ERC-7841 is compatible with synchronous messaging protocols (like CIRC) and asynchronous messaging protocols (like most existing protocols and CIRC).
Although there are other EIPs with similar core goals, the ongoing discussions sparked by ERC-7841 indicate strong momentum in the field of interoperability.
