Ethereum developers have decided to postpone the Pectra upgrade due to issues discovered during testing on the Holesky and Sepolia testnets.
Reasons for Upgrade Delay
During a developer call on March 6, two test cases revealed misconfigurations, necessitating further testing before deploying on the Ethereum mainnet. These bugs were related to test environment configurations rather than fundamental flaws in Pectra.
Error Correction Strategy
To fix the testing glitches, developers plan to create a 'shadow fork' of the Holesky testnet, allowing testing of Pectra without relying on the main Holesky network.
Next Steps for Holesky
Work continues to restore the primary Holesky network, requiring 67% of validators to reconfigure their systems. Holesky is expected to be fully operational by March 28, at which point further decisions regarding Pectra’s deployment will be made.
Ethereum developers chose to err on the side of caution, deciding to conduct further testing before setting a mainnet launch date for Pectra.
