• Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade hits the final test on Hoodi, aiming for an April mainnet launch.
• Developers face delays with Pectra, testing on three testnets before mainnet deployment.
• Ethereum reduces gas fees by 95% with the Dencun upgrade, despite Pectra’s testing issues.

The Pectra upgrade for Ethereum faces major implementation delays due to multiple testnet failures. Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade was expected for March 2025, although it has recently encountered delays on Holesky and Sepolia testnets. The creation of Hoodi as a new testnet follows multiple testnet failures, which pushed back the implementation of the Pectra upgrade until mainnet deployment in April 2025.

The Pectra upgrade brought expectations to enhance the user experience and enhancements of blockchain development tools. However, the implementation process encountered initial difficulties right from the beginning. The Holesky testnet experienced the first failure after deploying Pectra on February 24. According to Ethereum’s core team, the Holesky testnet developed problems due to its validator setup because it contained insufficient validators, leading to memory system overloads.

The problems continued on March 5 with the Sepolia testnet, which experienced additional errors compounded by a malicious attack exploiting an edge case. This attack caused the mining of empty blocks, further complicating the testing process. These repeated issues have pressured developers, especially after two failed testnets.

To address Holesky and Sepolia’s problems, the development team established Hoodi as their new testnet platform, which launched on March 17. The purpose of the Hoodi testnet is to provide final test conditions for Pectra before it is released to Ethereum’s mainnet.

Deployment of the Pectra upgrade on the Hoodi testnet has been planned for March 26, 2025, while successful implementation may result in its activation on the mainnet by April 25. Ethereum persists in its progress with system updates despite facing obstacles. The Dencun upgrade launched on March 13, 2024, reduced Ethereum gas fees to a 95% reduction point.

Multiple Pectra-related failures have stressed out the development group. Nixo Rokish of the Ethereum Foundation’s protocol support team highlighted the fatigue experienced by developers. In his interview, Rokish stated, “The consensus layer devs especially, but also somewhat the execution layer devs, are exhausted right now.” Several unexpected development complications have hindered the team’s efforts to move forward with the upgrade since the problems discovered in Holesky and Sepolia were fixed.