Ethereum devs activate Pectra upgrade on Sepolia testnet ahead of mainnet rollout
Quick Take
- Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade was activated on the Sepolia testnet.
- The upgrade underwent its first test phase on the Holesky testnet in February.
- Both testnet deployments have faced technical issues.
Ethereum’s upcoming Pectra upgrade was activated on the Sepolia testnet today at around 2:30 am ET.
Sepolia tests the upgrade’s features under simulated network conditions before the upgrade launches on the mainnet.
The upgrade previously underwent its first test phase on the Holesky testnet on Feb. 24. The Holesky testnet faced challenges with incorrect deposit contract addresses, which led to delayed finality.
Sepolia achieved finality. However, according to Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation, a problem with a custom deposit contract caused issues for execution layer clients to include transactions in blocks. This appears to have resulted in empty blocks on the network.
Developers are expected to finalize a mainnet activation date during Thursday's All Core Developers (ACD) call. A potential mainnet fork on Ethereum is targeted for April.
The Pectra upgrade builds on the March 2024 Dencun hard fork, which reduced Layer 2 fees and represents Ethereum’s continued efforts to stay competitive.
Pectra introduces various improvements to boost Ethereum’s scalability, security and usability. Key changes include improvements to the user experience in crypto wallets and account abstraction through EIP-7702, raising the upper limit for validator stakes from 32 to 2,048 ETH via EIP-7251, and increasing the maximum blob count to advance rollup scalability through EIP-7691.
Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. The Block continues to operate independently to deliver objective, impactful, and timely information about the crypto industry. Here are our current financial disclosures.
© 2025 The Block. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
