Ethereum Pectra Upgrade Hits Mainnet—Validator Caps Jump to 2,048 ETH

Ethereum’s long‑awaited Pectra upgrade is live, activating 11 Ethereum Improvement Proposals on the mainnet.

The network crossed the upgrade slot at 10:05 UTC and reached finality roughly 12 minutes later, clearing the last hurdle after two turbulent testnet runs.

Ethereum’s Pectra Hard Fork Goes Live: What You Need to Know

The headline change, EIP‑7251, raises each validator’s effective balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, letting large staking providers consolidate thousands of nodes and slash bandwidth costs.

Pectra has gone live and finalized ! Testing of the newly activated EIPs continues.

— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) May 7, 2025

Pectra Upgrade also debuts EIP‑7702, allowing externally owned accounts to temporarily execute smart‑contract code. The feature unlocks gas‑fee payments in stablecoins, subscription‑style transfers, and native wallet‑recovery tools. Nine additional EIPs target data availability, validator onboarding, and cryptographic efficiency.

At press time, ETH trades around $1,840, up almost 3% over the last 24 hours, as markets digest the upgrade while bracing for today’s FOMC rate decision.

Ethereum (ETH) Price Performance. Source: BeInCrypto

Core developers will now pivot to the next hard fork, “Fusaka,” slated for late 2025, but today’s smooth rollout cements Ethereum’s momentum after three years of incremental tweaks.

BeInCrypto contacted Bitfinex analysts for insight on the Pectra Upgrade. In their opinion, Pectra brings both opportunities and challenges for Ethereum Layer 2s.

While it boosts efficiency and lowers costs, it may also concentrate validator power and reduce Layer 2 fee revenues.

According to the analysts, this shift could impact decentralization and incentives, pushing Layer 2s to adapt through innovation and user-focused design.

“Ultimately, the Pectra upgrade represents a double-edged sword for Ethereum’s Layer 2s,” Bitfinex analysts told BeInCrypto.

Others like Nicolai Sondergaard, Research Analyst at Nansen, offer a more measured outlook. Speaking to BeInCrypto, Sondergaard said Pectra enhances Ethereum’s Layer-2 ecosystem by doubling blob capacity and raising calldata costs.

According to Sondergaard, this makes blobs the standard for rollup data, with lower fees and smoother UX on dApps.

He said DeFi and NFTs benefit from smarter wallets, gas sponsorship, and cheaper transactions, while onboarding and voting in DAOs and social apps become easier.

“Gasless voting or simplified onboarding becomes more practical with the new wallet capabilities. Meanwhile, the upgrade doesn’t introduce backward-incompatible changes, meaning existing contracts continue functioning as-is,” Sondergaard concluded.

Meanwhile, while the technical changes are mostly invisible to users, major exchanges like Binance and Coinbase implemented temporary service pauses as a precaution.

Binance and Coinbase Halt Key Services

Binance exchange said deposits and withdrawals of 14 tokens would not be available starting Wednesday at 09:45 (UTC).

“Starting at approximately 2025-05-07 09:45 (UTC), Binance will suspend the deposits and withdrawals of token(s)…to support the Ethereum network upgrade and hard fork to ensure the best user experience,” read the announcement.

With this news, the following tokens will not be available for depositing and withdrawing on Binance. Services will resume once the tokens are deemed stable and the volatility inspired by the Pectra Upgrade has eased.

Ethereum (ETH)	Polygon (POL)
Arbitrum (ARB)	Metis (METIS)
Optimism (OP)	Scroll (SCR)
zkSync Era (ZKSYNC)	Cyber (CYBER)
Base (BASE)	Metal DAO (MTL)
Manta Network (MANTA)	Celo (CELO)
Starknet (STRK)	Worldcoin (WLD)

Binance suspends deposits and withdrawals for 14 tokens. Source: Binance announcement

This suspension comes as the exchange looks to support the Ethereum network upgrade and hard fork, ensuring the best user experience. 

Notably, while Binance halts deposit and withdrawal functions for these tokens, trading on their networks will remain operational.

Coinbase also announced a similar move, pausing some operations to ensure a smooth and secure transition.

“To ensure user fund safety, we will temporarily pause Ethereum deposits and withdrawals from 2:50 AM to 3:45 AM PT,” Coinbase stated in a post.

However, the initiation of new staking requests on the Coinbase exchange will be delayed during that time. Normalcy will resume after 3:45 AM PT without affecting existing staked positions.