This article will review five noteworthy Ethereum upgrades, 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.
Article authored by: Kazu Umemoto
Article compiled by: Odaily Planet Daily
In 2024, Ethereum made significant progress towards a Rollup-centric direction with the Dencun upgrade, helping L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum improvement proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum request for comments (ERCs) should be closely watched in 2025?
This article will review five noteworthy Ethereum upgrades, 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.
A prominent improvement in the Pectra upgrade 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 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 execute operations on their behalf in a single transaction while maintaining the security and control of not 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 trading - a complex trading structure where multiple steps can be linked and executed conditionally, such as trades that only execute when certain conditions are met, without the need to trade for each step separately.
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 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 serves as a short-term remedy before the rise of ERC-4337, but its level of user experience (UX) enhancement is significant.
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. Validators wanting to stake additional ETH had to set up a brand new validating node and invest an additional 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 engaging in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, this proposal may enhance the operational speed of the Ethereum network through the integration of validating nodes as part of the Pectra upgrade. For example, projects like Lido can reduce the number of validating nodes in operation and earn rewards on the basic staking amount exceeding 32 ETH.
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some significant risk issues in the operation of validating nodes.
For example, if you want to earn rewards for running validating nodes but do not wish to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validator node operator and hand over your validating key to them (the validating key is used to validate and propose blocks). However, when you want to withdraw ETH, you must sign a 'voluntary exit message' with the validating key to complete the operation. If the operator intentionally causes trouble and does not sign this message, or if the validating key is leaked, your ETH may be maliciously withheld or even extorted.
EIP-7002 provides solutions allowing stakers to withdraw ETH solely through extracting keys. This improvement eliminates the risk of malicious operators refusing to sign exit messages and reduces the possibility of ETH being withheld after the validating key is leaked.
In recent years, Intents have been one of the hot topics in DeFi discussions. 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:
Unified Ethereum: establish universal standards for cross-chain operations across L2 and sidechains, supporting Ethereum's goal as the leading decentralized application platform.
Achieve interoperability: standardize order and settlement interfaces to enable seamless cross-chain execution.
Eliminate fragmentation: provide a universal framework to coordinate different systems for smoother cross-chain operations.
Enhance user experience: provide users with simplified, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interactions.
Increase liquidity: allows 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.
Promote innovation: change the cross-chain landscape by facilitating collaboration and encouraging innovative solutions on Ethereum.
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.
ERC-7841 abstracts chain-specific logic from applications, meaning the same application can deploy on 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 (such as bridging or intent message types) to be flexibly built on a single interface, rather than for each type of message.
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 core objectives, the ongoing discussions sparked by ERC-7841 indicate strong momentum in the field of interoperability.
