Ethereum's development and upgrades have been carried out continuously and regularly according to the development roadmap. As a result, Ethereum's scalability*1, security, and sustainability*2 are steadily improving.
The fact that a long-term development roadmap has been formulated and made public is a major and core strength of Ethereum, allowing it to flexibly adapt to new ideas from researchers and major breakthroughs.
Ethereum upgrades are being publicly discussed by users and engineers, and are open to the public. Although the discussions are quite technical, anyone can participate if they are motivated.
The content of the discussions is not only related to the core of Ethereum, such as responding to vulnerabilities, but also covers a wide range of issues, such as improvement proposals from organizations operating at the application layer (dApps, exchanges, etc.) and responses to transaction friction for end users (such as costs and transaction*3 speeds).
As these discussions mature, they are proposed as Ethereum improvement proposals (opens in a new tab), and if adopted, they are added to the roadmap.
In addition to small improvements, the roadmap also includes plans for a major upgrade that will be implemented in stages by reviewing the system from the ground up, and this year, 2025, is scheduled to be the start of the fifth major upgrade in Ethereum's history.
This upgrade contains more content that is more geared toward us end users than toward developers. Ethereum users have already said that it will be the biggest update in history.
Now, I would like to explain in detail about Ethereum's next upgrade, "Pectra," which was listed on the roadmap and is scheduled to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
