Ethereum is about to迎来重大升级：Pectra

Ethereum plans to implement a new round of important upgrades in the first quarter of 2025, codenamed Prague/Electra, commonly referred to as the Prague upgrade or Pectra upgrade. This upgrade is different from previous major updates, as it does not highlight a single primary goal but focuses on improvements and optimizations across multiple technical aspects.

Upgrade Highlights

1. Enhance scalability: Significantly improve network processing capacity by introducing sharding technology and完善 Layer 2 solutions.

2. Enhanced Security: Utilizing advanced encryption technology, optimizing the Proof of Stake ( PoS ) protocol, further improving the security and stability of the network.

3. Improve development experience: Introduce new programming languages, provide better development tools, and simplify the smart contract deployment process.

4. Optimize user experience: Strive to reduce gas fees, provide a more intuitive wallet interface, making operations more convenient for users.

5. Environmental Upgrade: Continue to optimize energy efficiency and create a more environmentally friendly and sustainable blockchain network.

Major Technical Improvements

Verkle trees and statelessness

Introducing Verkle tree technology to achieve network statelessness. This will greatly reduce the computational burden on validating nodes, eliminating the need to locally store the complete network state.

Validator Light Client

Develop a lightweight validator client that allows users to perform network validation on resource-constrained devices (such as tablets and smartphones) without the need to download the entire blockchain data. This initiative will further enhance the level of decentralization of the network.

Historical Data Optimization

It is proposed to delete historical data from full nodes after a certain period to reduce storage requirements. According to the founder of Ethereum, this could reduce the amount of data required to run a node from several TB to a level that can be accommodated by a regular computer's memory.

Staking mechanism improvement

• Simplified validator client software to reduce staking collateral processing delays.
• Control the growth rate of the validator set to enhance network security.
• Increase the maximum effective staking amount for a single validator from 32 Ether to 2,048 Ether to reduce network communication pressure.
• Provide more design options for staking pool developers.
• Improve proof efficiency, reduce network load and node bandwidth requirements.

Execution Layer Upgrade

• Enhance interoperability between the Ethereum mainnet and the Beacon Chain.
• Upgrade the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to enhance the upgradability and execution efficiency of smart contracts.
• Consider introducing smart account features to enable advanced functionalities such as batch transactions and fee sponsorships.

Impact of Upgrades on the Ecosystem

Developer Perspective

• Enhanced scalability and reduced gas costs will promote more efficient and economical decentralized application development.
• Enhanced development tools will simplify the process of creating and deploying smart contracts.
• Improved security and stability provide a better foundation for building reliable applications.
• Improved documentation and support systems will enhance the overall development experience.

User Perspective

1. Improved transaction processing speed, reduced network congestion.
2. Transaction fees have decreased, making the Ethereum ecosystem more inclusive.
3. User interface optimization, providing a more intuitive operating experience.
4. The environmental upgrade addresses users' concerns about energy consumption.

Outlook

The Pectra upgrade will comprehensively enhance the performance, security, and user-friendliness of Ethereum, laying the foundation for further development and innovation in decentralized ecosystems. By continuously pushing the boundaries of technology, Ethereum is expected to reshape the way people interact with blockchain technology, unlocking new possibilities and solidifying its leading position in the decentralized world.