Vitalik Buterin Unveils Ethereum's Major Upgrade

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Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has finally revealed the roadmap for the long-awaited Pectra upgrade, sharing key details about its future development. Buterin’s comments come as the Ethereum network recently saw its gas limit increase surpass the 32 million mark. The announcement also coincided with ETH’s price rallying more than 13%, surpassing $2,800.

Gas Limit Increase Is a Positive Sign

Currently, nearly half (49.5%) of Ethereum blocks have signaled support for a gas limit increase, marking the first potential adjustment since the network switched to a proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism. The milestone reflects the decentralization of PoS – a system that is more efficient than proof of work (PoW) but requires more coordination time to reach consensus.

Increasing the gas limit is a major step forward for the scalability of the Ethereum blockchain, allowing network validators to process more transactions per block. According to data from Dune Analytics, Ethereum’s gas limit has now surpassed 32 million.

Vitalik Buterin Reveals Pectra Upgrade Roadmap

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed optimism about the scalability of Layer 1 (L1). He also acknowledged the efforts of Ethereum developers to improve the performance and decentralization of the network.

In addition, Buterin highlighted important advances in Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4444, which aims to optimize transaction history storage, as well as the direction of network development towards a “stateless” model with a new binary tree proposal.

Additionally, he revealed that developers are working on improving the performance of clients, allowing for higher gas limits while maintaining decentralization. On the X platform, Buterin wrote:

“Pectra, which is scheduled to launch in March, will increase the blob target from 3 to 6, doubling the capacity of Layer 2s. In my opinion, the blob target should be decided by staker votes, allowing for adjustments to technological advances without waiting for hard forks.”

The upcoming Pectra upgrade will improve external accounts (EOAs), making them function more like smart contracts. This is an important step towards improving the user experience when interacting with decentralized applications (dApps).