Ethereum developers celebrated a seemingly successful test of Pectra, Blockchain’s most significant upgrade since 2024, on Sepolia Test Network. However, hours after the test Sepolia began to encounter errors.
It was the second buggy test for the highly expected pectra upgrade designed to improve Ethereum’s efficiency, user experience and validator system. The questions have led to calls from some developers that the upgrade is delayed.
Wednesday’s Sepolia test was expected to be the last step before Pectra’s launch at Ethereum’s mainnet. Originally the test seemed to succeed, but later developers noticed empty blocks added to the chain.
The Ethereum Foundation attributed the question to “a problem with Sepolia’s allowed payment contract”, which “prevented many execution layers from including transactions in blocks.” In other words, the problem stemmed from a wrong configuration specific to the Sepolia test, rather than an error with Pectra itself.
The Ethereum Foundation developers said they “identified the root cause within a few minutes” and implemented a solution to restore the network’s normal function.
Despite this, the test has raised concern about whether Pectra has undergone adequate testing. The previous test on Ethereum’s Holeky test network also ran into configuration problems, the time caused by incorrectly configured validators.
“I think the events of both Holeky and Sepolia Testnet justify a delay in Pectra Mainnet activation,” Christine Kim, Vice President of Galaxy Digital Research, told Coindesk. Kim noted that although developers may feel ready, the wider Ethereum -Ecosystem – including large smart contract applications and wallet providers – has prepared.
Kim suggested that Ethereum’s developers “spend time creating additional test infrastructure” before launching the upgrade.
Ethereum Core developers are ready to meet on March 7 to determine Pectra’s official launch date. Any delay can stir controversy among Ethereum supporters already at odds due to a hanging ETH -tokenpris, management drama at the Ethereum Foundation and Mounting Competition from Network like Solana.
