Ethereum’s next upgrade: Prague-Electra (Pectra), explained

What is the Ethereum Prague-Electra (Pectra) upgrade?

Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade combines two separate upgrades: the Prague upgrade and the Electra upgrade.

The Prague upgrade is focused on changes to the network’s execution layer, with the Electra upgrade impacting the consensus layer. These upgrades, when combined, are collectively referred to as the “Pectra” upgrade.

The Pectra upgrade will follow “Dencun,” an amalgamation of the Deneb and Cancun upgrades, which occurred in March 2024. Dencun was technically an Ethereum hard fork designed to lower transaction fees for layer-2 solutions and improve Ethereum scalability. 

Pectra is a new milestone on Ethereum’s development roadmap and is scheduled to go live in the first quarter of 2025. This timescale allows for the inclusion of additional features to improve the Ethereum user experience (UX).