Ethereum’s Hard Fork on the Horizon: Paradigm, a research-driven investment firm, has announced that the Ethereum network will undergo a significant hard fork called Prague in 2024. The upgrade is expected to undergo testing on Ethereum testnets by Q3 2024, with a mainnet launch anticipated by the end of the year.
Goals of the Prague Upgrade: The primary focus of the Prague upgrade is to integrate staking-related Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), particularly EIP-7002, which aims to streamline re-staking and establish trustless staking pools. Additionally, the upgrade will introduce specific changes to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to enhance its efficiency and functionality.
Additional EIPs and Roadmap Insight: Paradigm’s report also highlights several other EIPs that will be given priority, including EIP-6110 and EIP-2537. The report also discusses the adoption of the Ethereum Object Format (EOF) by programming languages like Solidity and Vyper. It is important to note that the Paradigm team does not support the implementation of Verkle Tries in the Prague update, but they remain open to further development in the subsequent upgrade, Osaka, expected in mid/late 2025.