On March 5, the Ethereum team activated the Pectra hard fork on the Sepolia testnet.

Sepolia has successfully upgraded to Pectra 🚀

(Hope I don't jinx it this time) pic.twitter.com/pPtufWbHh2
— terence (@terencechain) March 5, 2025

Sepolia serves as the final major test before the mainnet launch, planned for early April. The final deployment date will be determined at the All Core Developers conference on March 6.

Developers simulated network load in Sepolia to match mainnet parameters.

The Pectra activation follows a similar deployment on Holesky on February 24, which temporarily caused slot finalization failures due to configuration issues in three key clients. The team released a software update to resolve the problem.

Despite identifying bugs, developers did not postpone the Sepolia rollout.

The name Pectra combines two previously planned upgrades: Prague (execution layer) and Electra (consensus layer).

The EIPs included in Pectra introduce account abstraction improvements, validator system changes, and overall network performance enhancements.

Earlier, Ethereum’s security team launched a bounty program to stress-test the hard fork, offering a $2 million prize pool until March 24.

Previously, JPMorgan analysts noted Ethereum is facing intensified competition from rival blockchains like Solana.

In February, developers discussed reducing the network upgrade cycle from one year to six months.