In 2024, Ethereum made significant progress with the Dencun upgrade by introducing blob space, achieving a 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) should we closely watch in 2025?
This article will highlight five Ethereum upgrades worth paying attention to, some of which are confirmed to launch in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but have garnered attention from notable supporters.
EIP-3074
One of the notable improvements 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 new 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 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.
Sponsored transactions—third-party payment 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 executed conditionally, such as only executing a transaction when certain conditions are met, without needing a separate transaction for each step.
Meta transactions—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. This is a short-term remedy before the rise of ERC-4337, but its enhancement in user experience (UX) is significant.
EIP-7251
For validators holding large amounts of ETH, EIP-7251 is undoubtedly a proposal of greater value. It allows validators to earn additional staking rewards beyond the standard 32 ETH stake limit. Previously, any stake amount exceeding 32 ETH was idle. Validators wishing to stake additional ETH had to set up an entirely new validating node and invest another 32 ETH. With EIP-7251, validators can use a single validating node to stake all their held ETH.
This improvement is expected to attract large institutions to run their own validating nodes, further participating 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 validating nodes. For example, projects like Lido can reduce the number of validating nodes in operation and earn rewards above the standard 32 ETH stake.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some major risk issues in validating node operations.
For example, if you want to earn rewards for running a validating node but don't 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 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 this and does not sign the 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 the leakage of validation 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 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, co-drafted 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 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 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: Transforming the cross-chain landscape by fostering collaboration and encouraging innovative solutions on Ethereum.
ERC-7841
ERC-7841 is an innovative token standard proposing 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 across multiple chains without altering how it sends/receives messages.
ERC-7841 is a modular foundation that specifies only 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 surrounding ERC-7841 indicate strong momentum in the realm of interoperability.