Pectra on Ethereum: greater efficiency, security and control for enterprise Blockchain applications

March 2, 2026

For those less familiar with Blockchain and decentralized networks, last year saw the launch of Pectra, the major upgrade to the Ethereum network, the leading platform for executing smart contracts. Pectra is a codename that combines improvements from the Prague and Electra proposals, making the network more efficient and easier to use, especially for Layer 2 solutions and decentralized applications (dApps). But why is this upgrade so important?

Every time an action is performed on a public network such as Ethereum—whether registering data or transferring a token—a certain amount of “gas” is required to power its execution. This gas represents a cost paid in the network’s native cryptocurrency by the party initiating the action. In enterprise environments, however, the end user does not always hold that gas. For this reason, many organizations rely on what could be described as a “central gas tank”, from which transactions for their applications or customers are funded.

Until now, ensuring that this funding model worked securely and efficiently required complex mechanisms or, in many cases, the creation of new smart accounts. However, with the Pectra upgrade and the new EIP-7702 standard, Ethereum introduces a more natural way to address this challenge: traditional accounts (EOAs) can temporarily behave like smart contracts without losing their identity or relying on third parties.

This shift simplifies transaction management, enhances security and represents a significant step towards a more flexible and accessible Blockchain.

What are smart accounts?

Until now, enabling advanced features such as fund recovery, batch transaction execution or fee sponsorship required migrating EOAs to smart accounts, as defined in the ERC-4337 standard. This process involved generating a new smart account from the original EOA and operating exclusively through it, meaning all transactions were executed from this new address. In practice, the transaction’s on-chain origin became this new address, making operational traceability more complex.

Each transaction remained a transaction—a core principle of Blockchain—but an additional step was required to attribute it to the account that had actually initiated it. This added complexity to the user experience and required the adoption of new tools and infrastructure.

With EIP-7702, an EOA can act as a smart contract without changing its address or losing traceability.

The new EIP-7702 standard removes this requirement by allowing an EOA to act as a smart contract through a mechanism known as code delegation. With this approach, the account can perform actions previously reserved for smart accounts. Transactions continue to be signed by the original account and its address remains unchanged, and users can disable code delegation at any time, restoring the account to its traditional behavior. This controlled activation and deactivation significantly improves both usability and security.

Advantages and limitations of smart accounts

Both the ERC-4337 standard and its enhanced version, EIP-7702, pursue the same goal: to provide Ethereum accounts with greater power and flexibility. However, each standard approaches this objective differently, with its own advantages and limitations.

The main advantage of ERC-4337 is that it does not require changes to the Ethereum protocol, enabling immediate adoption without network upgrades. In addition, its mature and well-defined infrastructure facilitates the relatively standardized implementation of complex use cases.

However, ERC-4337 implementations present several drawbacks:

The need to migrate existing EOAs to smart accounts, implying a change of address and the reassignment of transactions to these new accounts.
Dependence on off-chain components, introducing centralized elements that may be vulnerable to failures, unilateral decisions or denial-of-service attacks.
High technical complexity in both infrastructure and client integrations.

These limitations are mitigated by the EIP-7702 standard, as:

It does not require the creation of additional smart accounts, since EOAs use code delegation to access advanced functionalities.
All required infrastructure resides on-chain, eliminating reliance on third parties or centralized components.
Transaction fees are lower compared to ERC-4337, as the number of intermediate components is reduced.
On the other hand, EIP-7702 is only available on networks that have implemented the Pectra upgrade, as it requires protocol-level changes.

EIP-7702 reduces complexity, removes off-chain dependencies and improves efficiency compared to ERC-4337.

What are ‘smart accounts’ used for?

Use cases enabled by EIP-7702 include, among others, batch transaction execution and transaction sponsorship, both also possible under ERC-4337. In addition, this standard was designed to provide EOAs with more granular control mechanisms over their behavior, allowing restrictions on the types of operations that can be executed.

In conclusion, both ERC-4337 and EIP-7702 represent decisive steps towards account abstraction in Ethereum, albeit from different perspectives. While ERC-4337 opened the door to smart accounts without introducing protocol changes, its complexity and reliance on external elements make it less efficient and robust in certain scenarios. By contrast, EIP-7702 enables traditional accounts to temporarily function as smart contracts, offering greater simplicity, an improved user experience and a reduced attack surface.

‘Smart accounts’ enable transaction sponsorship, batch execution and enhanced operational control in Ethereum.

With this upgrade, Ethereum moves towards a more flexible and accessible model, in which EOAs retain their identity while benefiting from advanced capabilities without compromising usability. Moreover, thanks to managed services such as TrustOS, Telefónica Tech’s Blockchain platform, organizations can deliver these capabilities to end users while the infrastructure transparently assumes gas costs.