Ethereum network upgrades (Shanghai, Dencun, Pectra, Fusaka)

Ethereum changes its rules through scheduled hard forks. Each one bundles several EIPs and activates at a set epoch, and every node must update its software beforehand. Since the Merge, names combine an execution-layer city with a consensus-layer star: Shanghai and Capella became Shapella, Cancun and Deneb became Dencun, Prague and Electra became Pectra, and Osaka and Fulu became Fusaka.

Each name maps to concrete changes. Shapella, in April 2023, enabled staking withdrawals. Dencun, in March 2024, introduced blobs that made rollups far cheaper. Pectra, in May 2025, brought EIP-7702 for smart-account features on ordinary addresses, raised the maximum validator balance to 2,048 ETH and increased blob capacity. Fusaka, in December 2025, shipped PeerDAS and a framework for raising blob limits in smaller steps. The fork after Fusaka, Glamsterdam, is built around enshrined proposer-builder separation (EIP-7732) and block-level access lists (EIP-7928).

Dates often slip when testnets reveal bugs, and contents can change until late in the process. Users holding ETH normally need to do nothing; node operators, exchanges and wallets must upgrade in time.