Ethereum Pectra Upgrade: Enhanced Staking Flexibility and Accelerated Layer-2 Scaling

Ethereum completed the Pectra upgrade on May 7, bringing a series of important improvements. This upgrade mainly focuses on enhancing the flexibility of validator operations and strengthening the scalability of Layer-2.

Stake Mechanism Optimization

The Pectra upgrade significantly increases the maximum effective staking balance for validators from 32 Ether to 2048 Ether. This change allows stakers to increase their stake for existing validators or to combine multiple validators into one, thereby improving capital efficiency.

As of May 25, a total of 11,150 validators have completed the merge, merging a total of 359,146 ETH. This resulted in a decrease of 16,344 in the total number of active validators, but the overall staked ETH amount remained unchanged. The average stake per validator slightly increased to 32.4 ETH.

This trend of centralization not only enhances the capital efficiency of stakers but also helps alleviate network load and peer-to-peer communication pressure. As more node operators merge their stakes to increase returns, the average stake of validators is expected to continue rising, and the distribution structure of stakes will also change.

Layer-2 Scaling Support

The Pectra upgrade further supports Layer-2 scaling by doubling the blob space. The target number of blobs per block has increased from 3 to 6, and the upper limit has been raised from 6 to 9, significantly increasing the supply of blob space.

After the upgrade, the number of blobs uploaded daily by Rollup increased from approximately 21,300 to 28,000, and the used blob space also increased from around 2.7 GB to 3.4 GB. The average number of blobs per block is gradually approaching the new target value of 6, indicating that the transaction demand for Layer-2 is growing.

The increase in blob supply has directly reduced the cost of Rollups. The average blob fees have further decreased, making it almost free for major Rollup projects. The total blob fees paid on Layer-2 have dropped to extremely low levels.

Impact on Layer-2 Ecosystem

Lower costs provide higher profit margins for Layer-2, while also being able to handle more transactions. The transaction volumes of Layer-2s like Base and Optimism have surged significantly, from 8 million to 14 million.

This trend is similar to the situation when the Dencun upgrade first introduced blobs in March 2024. If Ethereum hopes to extract more value from blob fees, Rollups need to gradually increase their usage of blobs, pushing towards new block limits.

Summary

The upgrade of Pectra to the Ethereum staking ecosystem introduces greater flexibility and efficiency, while laying the foundation for scalability. Although early data shows that validator integration and Layer-2 blob usage rates are on the rise, many anticipated economic changes and scaling effects still need time to gradually manifest. This upgrade is quietly paving the way for the next phase of Ethereum's adoption and growth.