Pectra upgrade ships EIP-7702 smart accounts and raises the max effective validator balance to 2048 ETH

Ethereum Foundation/Ethereum protocol upgrades

Pectra activated on Ethereum mainnet on May 7, 2025. EIP-7702 enables ordinary accounts to use smart-contract features (batched transactions, sponsored gas, alternative authentication). EIP-7251 raises maximum validator reward balance from 32 to 2048 ETH, allowing stakers to consolidate validators.

• EIP-7702 supports transaction batching, gas sponsorship, hardware security modules, passkeys, spending controls, and recovery mechanisms.
• Chain-specific delegations and revocability protect against misuse; nonce-bound authorizations prevent replay attacks.
• EIP-7251 enables reward compounding; large operators can merge validators, reducing network bandwidth.
• Pectra also includes EIP-7002 (execution-layer triggerable exits) and EIP-6110 (faster deposit processing).