Ethereum Developers To Add EIP 7742 To Pectra Upgrade, Why It Matters

A new update has come to the Ethereum Pectra upgrade. According to Galaxy’s Vice President and researcher Christine Kim, the developers discussed the upgrade during their 144th All Core Developers Consensus Call (ACDC), which recently took place. Notably, the devs have decided to include EIP 7742 in the Pectra Upgrade. 

EIP 7742 and EIP 3074 Updates on Pectra 

This EIP 7742 creates a mechanism for the Consensus Layer (CL) to dynamically set the blob gas target and max. 

Apart from this EIP, there is a high likelihood that a blob count increase will also be included in the Pectra update. On the other hand, Kim noted that other changes to boost scalability, like a gas limit or slot time change, are also highly probable.

Before eventually deciding to add the EIP to the next upgrade, Ethereum core developers already added EIP-7742 to the CFI list for Pectra. 

The long-awaited Pectra update is expected to go live by the end of this year or early 2025. Apart from the EIP 7742, several other implementations have been included. The main component of this update is EIP-3074, an update that introduces an innovative “social recovery” function. This could eliminate the problem of lost private keys for Ethereum users.

This EIP-3074 grants simple Ethereum wallets, commonly known as externally owned accounts (EOAs), a broad spectrum of smart contract abilities. With the social recovery feature, users can delegate the ownership of their assets to an “invoker” contract. This then performs future transactions and function calls on the user’s behalf.

Pectra is also crucial to addressing delegation risks, a challenge that has plagued users over time. To achieve this, formally verified and fully audited invoker contracts must be available post-Pectra upgrade. These contracts will play a major role in connecting users with reliable options to mitigate potential security concerns. 

The social recovery feature also tackles the challenge of users forgetting or losing their private keys. Also, users may not need Ethereum in their wallet to send transactions. This is because the entity behind the invoker contract can pay for the transaction fees upfront. 

Having the EIP-3074 allows multiple actions to be completed in a single transaction.

Other Ethereum Updates

In August, Go Ethereum (Geth), one of the most widely used Ether clients, released version 1.14.18 in preparation for the launch of Pectra. 

This update addresses the problem of bugs and introduces crucial changes to enhance the network’s performance. It is worth noting that version 24.7.0 was introduced by Nimbus, another prominent Ether client, in late July.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is currently pursuing an improvement in Ethereum’s scalability. He recently revisited the subject of The Merge, focusing on a proposal to improve the network’s Proof-of-Stake (PoS) system despite its stability over the past two years. 

As a result, he suggested “economic finality” (or single-slot finality) and democratizing the staking process.