After two Buggy -Test runs of Pectra, Ethereum’s largest upgrade since 2024, the network developers on Thursday decided to postpone the upgrade pending further testing.
Pectra, planned as Ethereum, faced increasing pressure to compete with other blockchains, contains a slate of upgrades designed to improve Ethereum’s speed and ease of use.
When developers ink in the test dates for Pectra in January, they agreed to use Thursday, 6 Mar. Call to set a date for Pectra to go live on the mainnet. If all went well, the expectation was that the upgrade would go live in March.
The decision to postpone came after Pectra’s tests on Holeky and Sepolia, Ethereum’s two primary test networks, both encountered bugs. In both cases, the problems from incorrect configurations with the test were due to the test rather than problems with Pectra itself.
Under normal circumstances, these two tests would have been enough. However, due to the errors, developers determined on Thursday that Pectra should undergo further tests before going live on Ethereum’s main network.
“It seems that we need more information before we can really set a specific date,” said Alex Stokes, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation that led Thursday’s call.
As for the next step, developers decided on Thursday to create a “Shadow Fork” of Holeky Test Network, which has been useless since the last pectra upgrade. The Pectra test’s configuration problems forced many of Holeky’s validators offline, which means the network can no longer detect transactions properly.
A Shadow Fork is a temporary copy of a blockchain network that is discarded when no longer needed. Holeky is a very important test area for Ethereum’s developers, and a Shadow Fork provides certain key stakeholders – such as stacking pools and app developers – to test their code on Pectra, while the most important Holeky network is determined.
“Anyone who wants to test on Holeky can test there,” recapped on Thursday’s call. Meanwhile, developers will work to get the primary Holeky network back and run, which requires 67% of the validators running the network to configure their systems again and get back online.
When Holexy can complete again – which means it is capable of adding and detecting transactions as usual – “We get more data to call the next steps around Mainnet and launch Pectra,” Stokes said. Developers say Holeky will operate normally again around around around March 28.
Pectas improvements
Pectra is set to be one of blockchain’s most ambitious changes to date with the aim of improving the usability of both users and the network operators.
One of the most important additions of the upgrade, EIP-7702, gives crypto drawing books some smart contract features. The change is intended to move Ethereum further towards account abstraction, a technological feature that lets the wallet builders add user -friendly features as the possibility of paying for fees with currencies other than Ethereum’s original ETH.
Another important proposal, EIP-7251, will relieve some headaches to Ethereum’s operators or “Validators.” The change will increase the maximum amount of ETH One -Validator can be included from 32 to 2,048, which means that those who stick more than 32 ETH no longer need to divide their assets between so many nodes. The change is intended to improve the convenience of validators and reduce the time it takes to spin up a new knot.
Thursday’s postponement came when members of the community had already expressed frustration over the Ethereum Foundation, the non-profit that stewards Ethereum’s development and coordinating network upgrades.
The foundation’s critics claim that Ethereum has failed to develop a coherent roadmap that will help it compete with rising networks like Solana. They point to the hanging price of ether (ETH) as a sign of decreasing confidence from the wider market.
Read more: Ethereum’s second buggy ‘pectra’ test can lead to a delayed upgrade
