The Protocol: Ethereum’s Pectra Goes Live on Testnet

Welcome to The Protocol, CoinDesk's weekly wrap-up of the most important stories in cryptocurrency tech development. I'm Ben Schiller, managing editor at CoinDesk.
In this issue:
Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade Goes LiveAvalanche Visa card launchedEthereum Foundation executive director leavingHackers using GitHub to steal bitcoin
Network News
PECTRA GOES LIVE ON TESTNET: Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade went live on the Holesky testnet Feb. 24 but failed to finalize in the expected time. The Pectra hard fork combines together 11 major upgrades, or "Ethereum improvement proposals" (EIPs), into one package. At the heart of this is EIP-7702, which is supposed to improve the user-experience of crypto wallets. The proposal, which was scribbled by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in just 22 minutes, will allow wallets to have some smart contract capabilities, as part of a broader strategy to bring account abstraction to Ethereum — a concept that makes the usability of wallets a lot less clunky.
Another key proposal, EIP-7251, will allow validators to increase the maximum amount they can stake from 32 to 2,048 ETH. The proposal is supposed to ease some of the technicalities that validators who stake ETH face today: Those that stake more than their 32 ETH have to spread that across multiple validators, making the process a bit of a nuisance. By lifting the maximum stake limit and combining those validators, it could speed up the process of setting up new nodes. Holesky is the first of two testnets to run through a simulation of Pectra. The next test is supposed to occur on the Sepolia testnet on Mar. 5. But according to Christine Kim, a Vice President of Research at Galaxy, developers could delay it depending on the scale of today's issue. After Pectra goes live on both testnets, developers will ink in a final date to activate the upgrade on mainnet. — Margaux Nijkerk