Ethereum's developers have officially announced a schedule for the upcoming Pectra upgrade, aiming to enhance speed and efficiency on the second-largest blockchain. In a virtual meeting held on Thursday, the core Ethereum team confirmed that the upgrade is slated for release in March 2025.

Pectra combines eight significant upgrades, also known as Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), into a single package.

One of the most awaited upgrades is EIP-7702, which focuses on enhancing the user experience for wallets. This proposal, reportedly outlined by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in just 22 minutes, allows users' wallets to function akin to smart contracts. This change is part of a broader initiative to introduce account abstraction in Ethereum, making wallet management less cumbersome.

Another notable upgrade is EIP-7251, which raises the maximum staking limit for validators from 32 to 2,048 ETH. This amendment resolves a significant issue for validators who currently must divide stakes exceeding 32 ETH across many nodes—a process that has sometimes resulted in long waiting periods for node setups.

Pectra was originally intended to be Ethereum's most extensive hard fork yet and the first major enhancement since the Dencun upgrade in 2024. Despite its importance, the current upgrades are a scaled-down version of earlier proposals. Developers opted to split the initial ambitious plans for Pectra into two parts.

Testing for Pectra is planned across Ethereum's Sepolia and Holesky test networks during February, with intentions to launch on the mainnet as early as mid-March.

Read more: Ethereum Developers Confirm Plan to Split 'Pectra' Upgrade In Two