The Pectra hard fork, scheduled on the Ethereum network later this year, will allow users to avoid losing access to their assets and crypto wallets to operate as smart contracts.
Tim Beiko, Ethereum Core Developer, announced that the project team agreed on a list of Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP) that will be included in the Pectra hard fork. The next update is scheduled for late 2024 or early 2025.
Part of the Pectra hard fork will be the improvement proposal EIP-3074, designed to solve one of the main problems crypto users face — the loss of private keys. The developers plan to introduce an innovative “social recovery” feature that will allow users to avoid losing access to their assets by eliminating the need to store seed phrases to regain access.
EIP-3074 will also enable users to delegate the management of their assets to an Externally Owned Account (EOA) contract using a digital signature. This contract will perform all future transactions on the user’s behalf. The update will allow users to complete transactions without needing ETH in their wallet, as the EOA can pay transaction fees upfront.
EIP-3074 is also expected to enable crypto wallets to operate as smart contracts. This will enable wallets such as MetaMask or Trust Wallet to act as external EOAs. Such solutions will combine transactions — the user only needs to sign them once. External EOAs can also delegate funds for other users to use.
Some developers expressed concerns about the update’s security, pointing to the possibility of a complete leak of funds in case of compromise of just one signature. However, Ethereum devs remain confident that after the Pectra hard fork, several verified and fully tested EOAs are expected to appear, reducing the risk of asset loss.
The Ethereum network implemented the Dencun hard fork last month, which reduced transaction fees in L2 protocols.
