On Wednesday, the developers of Ethereum initially celebrated an apparently successful test of Pectra, the most important upgrade of the blockchain since 2024, on the Sepolia test network. However, a few hours after the test, Sepolia began to meet errors.
It was the second Buggy test for the long -awaited upgrade of Pectra, which is designed to improve efficiency, user experience and Ethereum validator system. The problems have led to calls from certain developers that the upgrade was delayed.
Wednesday’s sepolia test was to be the last step before Pectra launch on Ethereum’s main maintenance. Initially, the test seemed to succeed, but later, the developers noticed empty blocks added to the chain.
The Ethereum Foundation assigned the problem to “a problem with the authorized sepolia deposit contract”, which “prevented many customers from the execution layer from including block transactions”. In other words, the problem came from a configuration error specific to the Sepolia test, rather than a defect with Pectra itself.
The developers of the Ethereum Foundation said they “identified the deep cause in a few minutes” and deployed a fix to restore the normal network function.
Despite this, the test has raised concerns about whether Pecctra has suffered sufficient tests. The previous test on the Holesky d’Ethereum testnet also had configuration problems, this time caused by poorly configured validators.
“I think that the incidents on Holesky and Sepolia tests justify a period to the activation of Pectra’s Mainnet,” said Christine Kim, vice-president of research in Galaxy Digital, in Coindesk. Kim noted that if the developers can feel ready, the wider Ethereum ecosystem – including the main smart contract applications and portfolio providers – should not be prepared.
Kim suggested that the developers of Ethereum “spend time to configure an additional test infrastructure” before launching the upgrade.
The developers of Ethereum Core should meet on March 7 to determine the official launch date of Pectra. Any delay could arouse the controversy among the supporters of Ethereum, who are already in advance due to a late ETH token price, a leadership drama at the Ethereum Foundation and an increasing competition of networks like Solana.
