Original title: Ethereum Upgrades to Watch in 2025
Original author: Kazu Umemoto, Bankless
Original compilation: How, Odaily Planet Daily
In 2024, Ethereum introduced blob space through the Dencun upgrade, achieving significant progress in rollup-centric development and helping L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum request comments (ERCs) are worth closely following in 2025?
This article will review five Ethereum upgrades worth noting, some of which are confirmed to launch in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to implement but are receiving attention from notable supporters.
EIP-3074
A highlight of the Pectra upgrade is EIP-3074. Users can merge multiple transactions into one, projects 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. The system will allow EOA users to authorize smart contracts to perform actions on their behalf in a single transaction, while retaining 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.
· Sponsoring 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 transaction structures where multiple steps can be linked and conditional execution can be realized, such as transactions that are executed 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, for example, 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 high-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. It 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 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 32 ETH staking limit. Previously, any staking amount exceeding 32 ETH was idle. Validators wishing to stake additional ETH had to set up a brand new validating node and invest another 32 ETH. Through EIP-7251, validators can use a single validating node to stake all of their held ETH.
This improvement is expected to attract large institutions to run their own validating nodes, further engaging in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, this proposal, as part of the Pectra upgrade, could enhance the operational speed of the Ethereum network through the integration of validating nodes. For instance, projects like Lido can reduce the number of validating nodes they operate and can earn rewards on top of the basic staking limit of 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some significant risks in validating node operations.
For example, if you want to earn rewards for running a validating node but do not want to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validating node operator and hand over the validation key to them (the validation key is used for validating and proposing 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 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 by simply extracting keys. This improvement eliminates the risk of malicious operators refusing to sign exit messages and reduces the possibility of ETH being held hostage after 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 aimed directly at addressing cross-chain interoperability issues and defining 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-drafted by Uniswap and Across Protocol. ERC-7683 aims to standardize intents, bringing multiple benefits to the Ethereum ecosystem:
· Unifying Ethereum: Establishing a universal standard for cross-chain operations across L2 and side chains, supporting Ethereum's goal as a leading decentralized application platform.
· Achieving interoperability: Standardizing order and settlement interfaces for seamless cross-chain execution.
· Eliminating fragmentation: Providing a universal framework for coordinating different systems to achieve smoother cross-chain operations.
· Enhanced user experience: Providing users with streamlined, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interactions.
· Increased liquidity: Allows 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.
· Driving innovation: Changing 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 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 how it sends/receives messages.
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 for each message type.
3. ERC-7841 is compatible with synchronous messaging protocols (such as CIRC) and asynchronous messaging protocols (like most existing protocols and CIRC).
While there are a few other EIPs with similar goals at their core, the ongoing discussions surrounding ERC-7841 indicate strong momentum in the interoperability space.
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