Original title: Ethereum Upgrades to Watch in 2025
Original author: Kazu Umemoto, Bankless
Original compilation: How, Odaily Planet Daily
In 2024, Ethereum made significant progress in the Rollup-centric development direction by introducing blob space through 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 monitored in 2025?
This article will highlight five Ethereum upgrades worth paying attention to, some of which are confirmed to go live in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but have notable supporters.
EIP-3074
One notable improvement in the Pectra upgrade is EIP-3074. Users can consolidate multiple transactions into one, and project teams can sponsor 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 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 transaction fees opens up 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 transactions executed only if 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, 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 higher 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 improvement in user experience (UX) is significant.
EIP-7251
For validators holding a large amount of ETH, EIP-7251 is undoubtedly a more valuable proposal. It allows validators to receive additional staking rewards beyond the standard 32 ETH staking amount. Previously, any staking amount above 32 ETH was idle. If validators wanted to stake additional ETH, they had to set up a brand new validator node and additionally invest 32 ETH. However, through 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 speed of the Ethereum network through the integration of validator nodes. For example, projects like Lido can reduce the number of validator nodes they operate and receive rewards on top of the base staking amount of over 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses several significant risk issues in validator node operations.
For example, if you want to receive rewards for running a validator node but do not want to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validator node operator and give them the validation key (which 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 or 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 leaked validation keys.
ERC-7683
Over the past few 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, 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 for seamless cross-chain execution.
· Eliminating fragmentation: Providing a common framework to coordinate different systems for 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 fill networks, providing deeper liquidity.
· Accelerating transactions: Reducing failure rates and speeding up transaction times by facilitating competition among fillers.
· Promoting innovation: Transforming the cross-chain landscape by facilitating 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 altering its message sending/receiving methods.
2. ERC-7841 is a modular foundation that only specifies the information necessary for routing messages between applications. This allows specific message types (such as bridging or intent message types) to be flexibly built on a single interface instead of 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 goals, the ongoing discussion surrounding ERC-7841 indicates a strong momentum in the field of interoperability.
