This article will inventory five Ethereum upgrade contents worth paying attention to, some of which are confirmed to go live in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but have gained attention from some well-known supporters. This article is sourced from the article “Ethereum Upgrades to Watch in 2025” written by Bankless and compiled, translated, and written by odailynews.
In 2024, Ethereum introduced blob space through the Dencun upgrade, making significant progress in the direction of Rollup-centered development and helping L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum Request for Comments (ERCs) are worth paying close attention to in 2025?
This article will inventory five Ethereum upgrade contents worth paying attention to, some of which are confirmed to go live in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but have gained attention from some well-known supporters.
EIP-3074
One of the improvements that has attracted attention in the Pectra upgrade is EIP-3074. Users can merge multiple transactions into one, and project parties can sponsor user transactions and pay their gas fees. At the same time, a new method has been added to recover wallets in case users lose their private keys.
EIP-3074 introduces new Ethereum opcodes. The system allows EOA users to authorize smart contracts to perform operations on their behalf in a single transaction, while maintaining the security and control of not permanently transferring private keys.
These new opcodes implement the following user-friendly utilities:
– Transaction batching: Batch multiple transactions, such as multiple token transfers, into a single operation.
– Transaction sponsorship: Enables third-party payment of transactions, opening up new avenues for applications to pay gas fees for their users.
– Conditional transactions: Complex transaction structures that can link multiple steps and implement conditional execution, such as transactions that only execute when certain conditions are met, without the need for separate transactions for each step.
– Meta-transactions: The ability to sign transactions that can be submitted by another party, for example, signing transactions offline or from other interfaces without requiring ETH as gas.
– Delegated security: By allowing trusted callers to manage transactions, users can benefit from higher-level security models, such as models involving multi-signature settings.
EIP-3074 is the next significant step in the future development of the Ethereum account model. It is a short-term remedy before the rise of ERC-4337, but it has significant implications for improving user experience (UX).
EIP-7251
For validators holding a large amount of ETH, EIP-7251 undoubtedly has a higher value proposition. It allows validators to receive additional rewards for staking beyond the standard 32 ETH stake. Previously, any stake amount exceeding 32 ETH was idle. If validators wanted to stake additional ETH, they had to set up a completely new validation node and invest an additional 32 ETH. With EIP-7251, validators can stake all the ETH they hold using a single validation node.
This improvement is expected to attract large institutions to run their own validation nodes and further participate in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Additionally, as part of the Pectra upgrade, this proposal could also improve the execution speed of the Ethereum network through the integration of validation nodes. For example, projects like Lido could reduce the number of validating nodes required and provide rewards on top of the base staking amount of over 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some significant risk issues in validation node operations.
For example, if you want to receive rewards for running a validation node but don’t want to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validation node operator and give them the validation key (used for validating and proposing blocks). However, when you want to withdraw ETH, you must sign a “voluntary exit message” using the validation key to complete the operation. If the operator intentionally refuses to sign this message or if the validation key is compromised, your ETH may be maliciously withheld or even extorted.
EIP-7002 provides a solution where stakers can withdraw ETH by simply withdrawing the key. This improvement eliminates the risk of malicious operators refusing to sign exit messages and reduces the possibility of ETH being seized due to the compromise of validation keys.
ERC-7683
Intent has been a hot topic in the DeFi space for the past few years. ERC-7683 is a token standard that aims to directly address cross-chain interoperability issues and define a shared structure for cross-chain intents. This standard is like “an order ticket that anyone can create, and any resolver can fulfill.”
ERC-7683 was first proposed in 2024 and was jointly drafted by Uniswap and Across Protocol. ERC-7683 aims to standardize Intents and brings multiple benefits to the Ethereum ecosystem:
– Unified Ethereum: Establish a common standard for cross-chain operations across L2s and sidechains, supporting Ethereum’s goal as a leading decentralized application platform.
– Achieve interoperability: Standardize order and settlement interfaces to achieve seamless cross-chain execution.
– Eliminate fragmentation: Provide a universal framework for coordinating different systems to achieve smoother cross-chain operations.
– Enhance user experience: Provide users with simplified, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interactions.
– Increase liquidity: Allow DApps access to cross-chain shared liquidity networks, providing deeper liquidity.
– Accelerate transactions: Reduce failure rates and speed up transaction times by facilitating competition among fillers.
– Drive innovation: Change the landscape of cross-chain by promoting collaboration and encouraging innovative solutions on Ethereum.
ERC-7841
ERC-7841 is a novel token standard that proposes a low-level message format and API for applications to send messages to other chains or receive messages from other links.
ERC-7841 abstracts chain-specific logic from applications, meaning that the same application can be deployed on multiple chains without changing the way it sends/receives messages.
ERC-7841 is a modular foundation that only specifies the information required to route messages between applications. This allows specific message types (such as bridging or intent message types) to be flexibly built on top of a single interface, rather than for each message type.
ERC-7841 is compatible with both synchronous message passing protocols (such as CIRC) and asynchronous message passing protocols (such as most existing protocols and CIRC).
While there are other EIPs with similar goals, the ongoing discussions around ERC-7841 indicate a strong momentum in the field of interoperability.