This article will list five Ethereum upgrade contents worth paying attention to, some of which are confirmed to be launched in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but have gained attention from well-known supporters. This article is sourced from an article titled “Ethereum Upgrades to Watch in 2025” by Bankless, compiled, translated, and written by odailynews.
In 2024, Ethereum introduced blob space through the Dencun upgrade, which made significant progress in the development direction centered around Rollup and helped L2 reduce transaction costs by 10 to 100 times.
What Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) and Ethereum Request for Comments (ERCs) are worth close attention in 2025? This article will list five Ethereum upgrade contents worth paying attention to, some of which are confirmed to be launched in the Pectra upgrade, while others will take longer to realize but have gained attention from well-known supporters.
EIP-3074
One of the improvements that received much 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 retaining the security and control of not permanently transferring private keys.
These new opcodes achieve the following user-friendly utilities:
– Transaction batching: Batch multiple transactions, such as multiple token transfers, into a single operation.
– Sponsored transactions: Enables the ability for third parties to pay for user’s gas fees, opening up new avenues for applications to pay gas fees for their users.
– Conditional transactions: Complex transaction structures that 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.
– Metatransactions: The ability to sign transactions submitted by another party, for example, signing transactions offline or from other interfaces without ETH as gas.
– Delegated security: By allowing trusted callers to manage transactions, users can benefit from higher-level security models, such as models involving multisignature settings.
EIP-3074 is the next significant step in the future development of the Ethereum account model. It is a short-term remedial measure before the rise of ERC-4337, but it significantly improves the user experience (UX).
EIP-7251
For validators holding a large amount of ETH, EIP-7251 undoubtedly has higher value. It allows validators to receive additional rewards for staking beyond the standard 32 ETH staking amount. Previously, any staking amount exceeding 32 ETH remained idle. If validators wanted to stake additional ETH, they had to set up a 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 may also improve the execution speed of the Ethereum network through the integration of validation nodes. For example, projects like Lido can reduce the number of validating nodes it executes and receive rewards above the base staking amount of 32 ETH.
EIP-7002
As part of the Pectra upgrade, EIP-7002 addresses some significant risks in validation node operations.
For example, if you want to receive rewards for running a validation node but do not want to deal with complex operations, you can delegate this task to a validation node operator and hand over the validation key to them (the validation key is used for validating and proposing blocks). However, when you want to withdraw ETH, you must use the validation key to sign a “voluntary exit message” 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 only extracting the key. This improvement eliminates the risk of malicious operators refusing to sign exit messages and reduces the possibility of ETH being seized after the validation key is leaked.
ERC-7683
Intents have been a hot topic in DeFi for the past few years. ERC-7683 is a token standard aimed at directly addressing cross-chain interoperability issues and defining a shared structure for cross-chain intents. This standard is “like a promissory note that anyone can create and anyone 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: Establishing a common standard for cross-chain operations across L2 and sidechains, supporting Ethereum’s goal to be the leading decentralized application platform.
– Achieving interoperability: Standardizing order and settlement interfaces to achieve seamless cross-chain execution.
– Eliminating fragmentation: Providing a general framework to coordinate different systems for smoother cross-chain operations.
– Enhancing user experience: Providing simplified, intuitive, and frictionless cross-chain interaction for users.
– Increasing liquidity: Allowing DApps to access cross-chain shared liquidity pools for deeper liquidity.
– Accelerating transactions: Lowering the failure rate and speeding up transaction times by promoting competition between fillers.
– Driving innovation: Changing the cross-chain landscape by facilitating 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 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 needed 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 instead of each message type.
ERC-7841 is compatible with both synchronous message-passing protocols (such as CIRC) and asynchronous message-passing protocols (like most existing protocols and CIRC).
Although there are other EIPs with similar goals, the ongoing debate surrounding ERC-7841 indicates a strong momentum in the field of interoperability. 