What Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum Requests for Comments (ERCs) are worth closely watching in 2025?
Article author: Kazu Umemoto
Source: Bankless
Article compilation: Odaily Star Daily
In 2024, Ethereum introduced blob space through the Dencun upgrade, making significant progress towards a Rollup-centric development direction and helping L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum Requests for Comments (ERCs) are worth closely watching 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 realize but are receiving attention from notable supporters.
EIP-3074
One of the most discussed improvements in the Pectra upgrade is EIP-3074. Users can merge 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 operations on their behalf in a single transaction while maintaining security and control without permanently transferring their private keys.
These new opcodes implement the following user-friendly utilities:
1. Transaction batching - batch multiple transactions (like multiple token transfers) into a single operation.
2. Sponsored transactions - the ability for third parties to pay for transactions opens new avenues for applications to pay Gas fees for their users.
3. Conditional transactions - complex transaction structures where multiple steps can be linked and executed conditionally, such as transactions that only execute if certain conditions are met, without needing to transact separately for each step.
4. 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.
5. 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 major 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) level is significant.
EIP-7251
For validators holding a significant 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. Prior to this, any staking amount above 32 ETH was idle. Validators wishing to stake additional ETH had to set up a new validation node and invest an extra 32 ETH. However, with EIP-7251, validators can stake all their held ETH using a single validation node.
This improvement is expected to attract large institutions to run their own validation nodes and further engage in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, this proposal, as part of the Pectra upgrade, may enhance the operation speed of the Ethereum network through the integration of validation nodes. For example, projects like Lido can reduce the number of operational validation nodes and gain rewards on top of the base staking limit of 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some significant risk issues in validation node operations.
For example, if you want to earn rewards for running validation nodes but don't want to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to validation node operators 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 by not signing this message or if the validation key is leaked, your ETH may be maliciously withheld or even extorted.
EIP-7002 provides a solution allowing stakers to withdraw ETH simply by extracting keys. This improvement eliminates the risk of malicious operators refusing to sign exit messages and reduces the chances of ETH being withheld due to leaked validation keys.
ERC-7683
In recent years, intents have been one of the hot topics in DeFi discussions. ERC-7683 is a token standard designed to directly address cross-chain interoperability issues and defines 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:
1. Unified Ethereum: Establish universal standards for cross-chain operations across L2 and sidechains to support Ethereum's goal as the leading decentralized application platform.
2. Achieve interoperability: Standardize order and settlement interfaces for seamless cross-chain execution.
3. Eliminate fragmentation: Provide a universal framework to coordinate different systems for smoother cross-chain operations.
4. Enhance user experience: Provide users with simplified, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interactions.
5. Increase liquidity: Allow DApps to access cross-chain shared fill networks, providing deeper liquidity.
6. Accelerate transactions: Lower failure rates and speed up transaction times by fostering competition among fillers.
7. Promote innovation: Change 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 how it sends/receives messages.
2. ERC-7841 is a modular foundation that specifies only the information needed to route messages between applications. This allows specific message types (like 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 (like CIRC) and asynchronous messaging protocols (like most existing protocols and CIRC).
While there are other EIPs focused on similar goals, the ongoing heated discussions surrounding ERC-7841 indicate a strong momentum in the field of interoperability.
