March 13 hard fork Cancun Deneb has been successfully deployed on Ethereum. The developers quickly got back to work on the preparation another hard fork named Prague Electra (Pectra). Since its composition is still being clarified, the developers could opt for a two-phase update.
Ethereum: Pectra hard fork split into two updates
The contours of the Prague hard fork Electra, also called Pectra, have been taking shape for several months. As devnets follow each other, developers have even gone so far as to consider a deployment period. This was it set for the first quarter of 2025.
However, these estimates could be shaken by recent discussions among the developers involved.
In fact, as Christine Kim recently revealed on X, Pectra will eventually be deployed in two phases.
“Pectra will be split into 2 updates, the first of which will include at least the 8 EIPs that are currently on pectra devnet 3.”
During the recent Ethereum All Core Developers Consensus Call, these developers discussed what will be included in what they call Pectra 1.
There should be 8 EIPs currently running on devnet 3 already. However, the addition of EIP-7688 was discussed. As well as the potential increase in blob size. Which, as we recall, they were introduced during the previous hard fork.
Afterwards, the developers debated whether to fix the Pectra 2 scope and what should be included in this follow-up update. However, no final decision has been taken on this matter.
What horizon for Pectra 1 and Pectra 2?
Of course, we’re curious to see what impact these debates will have on the Pectra 1 deployment date.
According to Christine Kim’s report, it appears that this should not affect the deployment planned for the first quarter of 2025.
Pectra 2, the second part of the hard fork, could be deployed during the 3rd quarter of 2025. A view supported by indie developer Danno Ferrin.
“Danno Ferrin said that for the fork to be ‘worth it’, the other half of Pectra needs to aim for a mainnet launch in Q3 2025.”
As Christine Kim pointed out, this separation of Pectra 1 and 2 makes sense especially from a narrative perspective. Actually, Pectra 1 would be more of a UX (user experience) focused update and Pectra 2 would be more focused on the data availability aspect.
ETH price seems to be recovering. After he had it crossed the $2,500 mark at the end of last weekETH is now above $2600. Will it last?