Ethereum Developers Prepare Electra Upgrade – What Can We Expect?

The next consensus layer-focused hard fork coming to Ethereum (ETH) is the Electra upgrade, and developers have been busy beefing up the upgrade with certain EIPs that provide specific features. The four main EIPs were recently revealed by Galaxy researcher Christine Kim.

Electrical upgrade sees multiple implementations

The next upgrade is expected to go live on the testnet very soon. From discussions at the latest biweekly meeting of the All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC), led by researcher Alex Stokes of the Ethereum Foundation (EF), Ethereum developers are integrating EIP-6110, EIP-7002, EIP-7251 and EIP-7549 in the Electra upgrade.

EIP-6110

EIP-6110, which was already created in December 2022, is ready to provide on-chain validator deposits. According to the Ethereum Foundation, “this EIP enables an in-protocol deposit processing mechanism at the consensus layer and eliminates the proposer voting mechanism currently used.”

In the long term, the EIP 6110 will help improve the security and stability of Ethereum by changing the way the network processes the deposits of its validators.

EIP-7002

EIP-7002 can also be referred to as the execution layer triggerable outputs. It would allow validators to trigger exits via their execution layer capture data (0x01). There are still developer considerations to make minor adjustments to this EIP that will also cause a change in the Engine API.

EIP-7251

EIP-7251 is tagged “Increase the MAX_EFFECTIVE_BALANCE” because it aims to allow validators to have larger effective balances while maintaining the lower limit of 32 ETH. It is notable that EIP-7002 is a prerequisite for this EIP. Therefore, there are speculations that implementing EIP-7002 and 7251 in the same upgrade will lead to some complexity.

EIP-7549

EIP-7549 moves the commission index outside the signed attestation message. This is one of the most recently established EIPs. The Ethereum Foundation described it this way:

“This proposal aims to make Casper FFG customers more efficient by reducing the average number of links required to verify consensus rules. While all types of customers can benefit from this EIP, ZK circuits that prove the Casper FFG consensus will likely have the most impact.”

Conclusion

The Ethereum blockchain is constantly evolving and undergoing intense evolution. Electra is the next major upgrade after the recently implemented Dencun upgrade, which went live on the mainnet earlier this year. We will of course keep you informed.