This article will highlight five notable Ethereum upgrades, some of which are confirmed to be launched in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to be realized but are garnering attention from well-known supporters.
Article author: Kazu Umemoto
Article translated by: Odaily Planet Daily
In 2024, Ethereum introduced blob space through the Dencun upgrade, making significant progress in the rollup-centric development direction and helping L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum request for comments (ERCs) are worth closely watching in 2025?
This article will highlight five notable Ethereum upgrades, some of which are confirmed to be launched in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to be realized but are garnering attention from well-known supporters.
A key improvement in the Pectra upgrade that has garnered significant attention is EIP-3074. Users can combine multiple transactions into one, and project teams can fund user transactions and pay their gas fees, while also introducing a method 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 maintaining security and control without permanently transferring private keys.
These new opcodes implement the following user-friendly utilities:
Transaction batching - batching multiple transactions (such as multiple token transfers) into a single operation.
Sponsored transactions - the ability for third parties to pay for transactions opens new avenues for applications to pay gas fees for their users.
Conditional transactions - complex trading structures where multiple steps can be linked and conditional execution can be achieved, for example, transactions that are executed only when certain conditions are met, without the need to trade separately 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 significant step in the future development of the Ethereum account model. It serves as a short-term remedy before the rise of ERC-4337, but its enhancement of user experience (UX) is substantial.
For validators holding a large amount 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. Previously, any staking amount exceeding 32 ETH was idle. If validators wanted to stake additional ETH, they had to set up an entirely new validation node and invest an additional 32 ETH. With EIP-7251, validators can use a single validation node to stake all of their ETH holdings.
This improvement is expected to attract large institutions to run their own validation nodes, further participating in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, this proposal, as part of the Pectra upgrade, may enhance the Ethereum network's operating speed by integrating validation nodes. Projects like Lido can reduce the number of operating validation nodes and earn rewards on the base staking amount that exceeds 32 ETH.
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some major risk issues in validation node operations.
For example, if you want to earn rewards for running validation nodes but do not want to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validation node operator and give them the validation keys (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 intentionally obstructs by not signing this message or if the validation key is leaked, 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 withheld due to leaked validation keys.
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 universal standards for cross-chain operations across L2 and sidechains to support Ethereum's goal as a leading decentralized application platform.
Achieving interoperability: Standardizing order and settlement interfaces for seamless cross-chain execution.
Eliminate fragmentation: Provide a common framework for coordinating different systems, achieving smoother cross-chain operations.
Enhance user experience: Provide users with simplified, intuitive, frictionless cross-chain interactions.
Increase liquidity: Allow DApps to access cross-chain shared filling networks, providing deeper liquidity.
Accelerate transactions: Reduce failure rates and speed up transaction times by promoting competition among fillers.
Drive innovation: Change the cross-chain landscape by promoting collaboration and encouraging innovative solutions on Ethereum.
ERC-7841 is an innovative token standard that proposes a low-level message format and API for applications to send messages to or receive messages from other chains.
ERC-7841 abstracts chain-specific logic out of applications, meaning the same application can be deployed across multiple chains without changing how 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 (e.g., 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 (such as CIRC) and asynchronous messaging protocols (like most existing protocols and CIRC).
While there are other EIPs with similar goals, the ongoing discussions sparked by ERC-7841 indicate a strong momentum in the field of interoperability.
