Ethereum developers have confirmed the critical testing date for the long-awaited Pectra upgrade, which will bring the blockchain closer to its first major update in nearly a year.

If the planned Holesky and Sepolia test network test network test networks are on schedule, developers expect the upgrade to go online on the main network in early April.

In the latest all-core developer conference call, Ethereum's core builders plan to conduct their first test on the Holesky testnet on February 26, The second test was then conducted on the Sepolia test network on March 5.

If the test goes smoothly, the developers will hold another meeting on March 6 to finalize the mainnet activation date. Tim Beiko, head of agreement support at the Ethereum Foundation, said early April was the most likely target.

Pectra is a hybrid of Prague and Electra upgrades, introducing eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to enhance wallet functionality and validator efficiency.

EIP-7702 is one of the most anticipated changes, designed to simplify the user experience and allow externally owned accounts (including most Crypto wallets) to be more like Smart contracts run like

This improvement is part of a broader push to abstract accounts, which is a A blockchain trend aims to make wallets more flexible by allowing users to pay transaction fees using assets other than ETH.

EIP-7251 is another important update that increases the validator's capital injection limit from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH.

This change is expected to alleviate network congestion, allowing large validators to integrate services and reduce the long queues currently required to establish new nodes.

Pectra upgrade comes at a time when Ethereum performed poorly and attracted much attention in its competition with BTC and competitive smart contract networks.

In recent months, competitors such as Solana have been in a strong position, attractingThe focus and talent of the Ethereum ecosystem.

At the same time, the Ethereum Foundation is also experiencing a major transformation in leadership, which further increases uncertainty about the long-term direction of the project.

The foundation has also been criticized for selling ETH in recent months, especially when the market is down.

Through Pectra, developers hope to reaffirm Ethereum’s dominance as a leading smart contract blockchain.

If everything goes as planned, the upgrade will strengthen Ethereum's technological advantages, improve user adoption, and solve some of the biggest pain points of the network.