From Pectra to Fusaka: How Ethereum’s protocol changed in 2025
Ether prices may have spent much of 2025 in the doldrums, but Ethereum as a protocol certainly did not.In a year defined by reshuffled leadership, back-to-back upgrades, intensified security work, and a renewed focus on interoperability and privacy, the network used the past twelve months to realign its long-term vision and sketch the contours of what comes next.The year opened under tension within the Ethereum Foundation, following a wave of community criticism accusing the organization of drifting and calling for what some described as a "wartime CEO." This internal debate spilled into public view as developers and stakeholders questioned the foundation's mission and pace. That pressure eventually led to a high-profile restructuring that would herald major updates throughout the rest of the year.In February, longtime executive director Aya Miyaguchi formally "stepped up" into the role of president as Ethereum co-creator Vitalik Buterin pledged to rework leadership structures. Within days, the foundation appointed Hsiao-Wei Wang and Tomasz K. Stańczak as co-executive directors. It simultaneously created a new marketing and narrative arm, Etherealize, under former foundation researcher Danny Ryan.The reorganization continued into spring as Buterin and the new directors laid out an updated board structure and clarified a more explicit mission anchored in cypherpunk values and long-term protocol stewardship. By mid-year, the foundation also restructured its R&D division, consolidating teams and issuing layoffs as part of a push to refocus on core protocol priorities.PectraThose internal shifts coincided with one of the year's two major technical milestones. In May, developers activated Pectra — a combined Prague-Electra hard fork containing eleven network changes. The upgrade introduced account abstraction via EIP-7702, raised the maximum validator stake limit to 2,048 ETH, expanded blob throughput, and brought multiple quality-of-life improvements to validator operations and Layer 2 infrastructure. Within a week of activation, more than 11,000 EIP-7702 authorizations were created on mainnet, signaling immediate uptake from wallet providers experimenting with new smart-account flows.The foundation followed Pectra with a sweeping security agenda branded the "Trillion Dollar Security." As The Block reported, this initiative focused on supporting Ethereum's long-term vision of powering global finance. Also in May, the foundation released the first phase outlining critical threats and attack surfaces. A subsequent report expanded on those challenges, identifying protocol-level risks and UX shortcomings tied to safety. Later in the year, a follow-up framework emphasized that improved user experience — including better defaults, clearer signing flows, and safer account recovery — was inseparable from security itself.Treasury management also became a strategic priority. A mid-year update revealed that the foundation was reallocating portions of its ETH holdings into stablecoins and other onchain assets to ensure sustainable funding through 2025 and 2026, which it described as "pivotal" years for the ecosystem.FusakaAs the summer progressed, protocol attention shifted toward the next major milestone: Fusaka. Buterin argued that PeerDAS — a data-availability scheme central to the upgrade — would be key to scaling Layer 2 throughput. At the same time, the foundation unveiled a set of initiatives to shape Ethereum into a base layer for emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. A new "dAI" team began work on positioning the network as infrastructure for decentralized AI systems.In parallel, a multi-phase interoperability effort sought to make Ethereum’s increasingly saturated Layer 2 ecosystem "feel like one chain." The foundation published early frameworks and followed with additional details on an "Interop Layer" designed to standardize cross-rollup messaging and developer experience later in the year.Privacy research accelerated alongside these efforts. The EF released an end-to-end privacy roadmap covering private reads, writes, and proving. A dedicated Privacy Cluster team formed soon after to push the work forward. By autumn, Buterin introduced Kohaku, a proposal framing how Ethereum could support privacy-preserving applications without compromising auditability or decentralization.As developers prepared for Fusaka's activation, Ethereum's throughput journey hit another milestone when the network raised its block gas limit to 60 million in late November. Days later, Ethereum initiated the Fusaka rollout, launching its twice-a-year hard-fork schedule and beginning a phase of more predictable upgrade cadence. Shortly after the upgrade, Buterin sparked fresh debate by pushing for a trustless gas-futures market to help users hedge fee volatility — an idea that drew both skepticism and curiosity from developers and users.Ethereum closed the year by naming "Hegota" as the upgrade following Glamsterdam in 2026, anchoring the medium-term roadmap and signaling that the protocol's next phase will focus on consolidating the work of Pectra and Fusaka while advancing interoperability, privacy, and rollup maturity.Price may have stayed quiet, but the Ethereum protocol did anything but.Disclaimer: The Block is an independent media outlet that delivers news, research, and data. As of November 2023, Foresight Ventures is a majority investor of The Block. Foresight Ventures invests in other companies in the crypto space. Crypto exchange Bitget is an anchor LP for Foresight Ventures. 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