In 2024, Ethereum introduced blob space through the Dencun upgrade, making significant progress in rollup-centered development and helping L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum request for comments (ERCs) should be closely monitored in 2025?
This article will highlight five Ethereum upgrades to watch, some of which are confirmed to go live in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but are attracting attention from prominent supporters.
EIP-3074
A highly anticipated improvement in the Pectra upgrade is EIP-3074. Users can combine multiple transactions into one, project teams can fund user transactions and pay their Gas fees, and a new method has been added 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 perform operations on their behalf in a single transaction while retaining the security and control of not permanently transferring private keys.
These new opcodes implement the following user-friendly utilities:
Transaction batching—batching multiple transactions (like multiple token transfers) into a single operation.
Sponsored transactions—the ability for a third party to pay for transactions, opening up 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 transactions that only execute if 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, for example, signing transactions offline or from other interfaces without requiring 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 Ethereum's account model. This is a short-term remedy before the rise of ERC-4337, but its improvement in user experience (UX) is significant.
EIP-7251
For validators holding large amounts of ETH, EIP-7251 is undoubtedly a proposal of higher value. It allows validators to earn additional staking rewards beyond the standard staking amount of 32 ETH. Before this, any staking amount exceeding 32 ETH was idle. If a validator wanted to stake additional ETH, they would have to set up a brand new validating node and invest an additional 32 ETH. With EIP-7251, validators can stake all their ETH holdings using a single validating node.
This improvement is expected to attract large institutions to run their own validating nodes, further participating in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, as part of the Pectra upgrade, this proposal may enhance the Ethereum network's operating speed through the integration of validating nodes. For example, projects like Lido can reduce the number of validating nodes in operation and gain rewards on top of the standard staking amount of 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some significant risk issues in validating node operations.
For example, if you want to earn rewards for running a validating node but do not want to handle complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validator node operator and give them the validation key (the validation key is used to validate and propose blocks). However, when you want to withdraw ETH, you must use the validation key to sign a 'voluntary exit message' to complete the operation. If the operator deliberately complicates matters and does not sign this message, or if the validation key is leaked, your ETH may be maliciously withheld or even extorted.
EIP-7002 provides a solution that allows stakers to withdraw ETH solely through extraction keys. This improvement eliminates the risk of malicious operators refusing to sign exit messages and reduces the likelihood of ETH being withheld if the validation key is leaked.
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 define 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 and co-drafted by Uniswap and Across Protocol. ERC-7683 aims to standardize intents, bringing multiple benefits to the Ethereum ecosystem:
Unified Ethereum: Establishing a universal 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 universal framework to coordinate different systems for smoother cross-chain operations.
Enhancing user experience: Providing users with simplified, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interactions.
Increasing liquidity: Allowing DApps to access cross-chain shared fill networks, providing deeper liquidity.
Accelerating transactions: Reducing failure rates and speeding up transaction times by facilitating competition among fillers.
Driving innovation: Transforming the cross-chain landscape by promoting 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 other chains or receive messages from other chains.
ERC-7841 abstracts chain-specific logic from applications, meaning the same application can be deployed on multiple chains without changing how it sends/receives messages.
ERC-7841 is a modular foundation that specifies only the information required to route messages between applications. This allows for 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).
While there are other EIPs centered on similar goals, the ongoing discussions surrounding ERC-7841 indicate strong momentum in the interoperability space.