Original title: Ethereum Upgrades to Watch in 2025
Original author: Kazu Umemoto, Bankless
Original translation: How about it, 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 monitoring in 2025?
This article will review five Ethereum upgrades worth noting, some of which will be live in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but have garnered attention from notable supporters.
EIP-3074
A notable improvement in the Pectra upgrade is EIP-3074. Users can consolidate multiple transactions into one, and project parties 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 actions 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, opening new avenues for applications to pay Gas fees for their users.
· Conditional transactions — complex transaction structures in which multiple steps can be linked and executed conditionally, such as executing a transaction only when certain conditions are met, without needing to transact separately 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 higher 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. It is a short-term remedy before the rise of ERC-4337, but its user experience (UX) improvements are significant.
EIP-7251
For validators holding a large amount of ETH, EIP-7251 is undoubtedly a proposal with higher value. It allows validators to earn additional staking rewards beyond the standard 32 ETH staking limit. Previously, any staking amount over 32 ETH was idle. If validators wanted to stake additional ETH, they had to set up a brand new validator node and invest an additional 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 and further engage in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, this proposal, as part of the Pectra upgrade, may enhance the operational speed of the Ethereum network through the integration of validator nodes. For instance, projects like Lido can reduce the number of validator nodes they operate and still earn rewards on a base staking amount exceeding 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some 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 handle complicated operations, you can delegate this task to a validator node operator and hand over the validation keys to them (the validation keys are 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 obstructs, does not sign 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 validation key leaks.
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 jointly drafted by Uniswap and Across Protocol. ERC-7683 aims to standardize Intents, bringing multiple benefits to the Ethereum ecosystem:
· Unifying Ethereum: establishing common 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 to enable seamless cross-chain execution.
· Eliminate fragmentation: providing a common framework for coordinating different systems to achieve smoother cross-chain operations.
· Enhanced user experience: providing users with simplified, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interactions.
· Increased liquidity: allowing DApps to access cross-chain shared filling networks, providing deeper liquidity.
· Accelerating transactions: reducing failure rates and speeding up transaction times by fostering competition among fillers.
· Promoting 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 or receive messages from other chains.
1. ERC-7841 abstracts chain-specific logic from applications, meaning the same application can be deployed across multiple chains without changing its message sending/receiving methods.
2. 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 having separate interfaces for each message type.
3. ERC-7841 is compatible with synchronous messaging protocols (such as CIRC) and asynchronous messaging protocols (such as most existing protocols and CIRC).
While there are other EIPs with similar core objectives, the ongoing discussion surrounding ERC-7841 indicates a strong momentum in the field of interoperability.
