Ethereum’s Next Version Pectra: What are the Risks of the Upgrade?
As Ethereum prepares for the Pectra upgrade in early 2025, a recent research report by Liquid Collective and Obol highlights various associated risks.
The report emphasizes the importance of client, operator, and cloud diversity, as well as concerns over the limited adoption of Distributed Validator Technology (DVT).
Matt Leisinger, Chief Product Officer of Alluvial, a software development company supporting Liquid Collective, said in an interview:
“Our latest report with Obol highlights the growing importance of addressing staking-related risks and protocol-level penalties in Ethereum.”
Client and Operator Risks
Regarding consensus and execution clients, the report warns that “major errors in key clients” could lead to “significant slashing penalties and network instability.”
Staking through single-node operators, a fundamental aspect of Ethereum’s consensus mechanism, could expose staked assets to downtime and slashing risks.
Concerning staking, the report cautions that “operator diversity is crucial for maintaining network health and avoiding single points of failure.”
Leisinger emphasized this point in the report, stating: “Every staker and service provider must rigorously assess correlations, diversity, and risk mitigation measures to prevent potential risks, even from trusted node operators.”
The report also critically discusses the necessity of having validators and cloud providers geographically distributed, citing “recent disruptions such as those from Hetzner and AWS.”
It explains that DVT can significantly support this strategy by “enhancing validator resilience by reducing correlated risks.”
Geographic Distribution of Ethereum Validators Supporting Proof-of-Stake Consensus Mechanism
“For long-term resilience and institutional adoption, staking setups must prioritize diversity among node operators and validators.”
Leisinger added:
Pectra Upgrade
The upcoming Ethereum Pectra upgrade combines the Prague and Electra upgrades, which focus on changes to the network’s execution and consensus layers, respectively.
Pectra is expected to go live in Q1 2025 and includes Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-7251.
According to the report, “The Pectra upgrade will allow staking providers to consolidate their stakes into fewer validators by raising the maximum effective balance to 2,048 ETH.”
The change in staking limits will reduce the number of required validators and alleviate the communication load on the Ethereum layer.