Ethereum Developers Postpone Pectra Upgrade After Test Network Bugs

Ethereum developers decided on Thursday, March 6, to postpone the Pectra upgrade, the network's biggest upgrade since 2024, due to bugs encountered during testing on the Holesky and Sepolia test networks. The decision came after misconfigurations, not inherent issues with Pectra, caused problems. A "shadow fork" of the Holesky test network will be created to allow developers to continue testing while the main Holesky network is being fixed, expected by March 28. Pectra includes upgrades like EIP-7702, giving crypto wallets smart contract capabilities, and EIP-7251, increasing the maximum ETH stake per validator from 32 to 2,048. The postponement follows community frustration with Ethereum's development roadmap and ether's price performance.