Ethereum users will be able to recover private keys after Pectra update

The Ethereum Pectra update, scheduled for late 2024 or early 2025, will bring many additional features to crypto wallets and user experience improvements. This was stated by blockchain developer Tim Beiko.

All things considered, teams were in agreement about moving forward in the EIP. 3074 will be included in Pectra 🎉!

— timbeiko.eth ☀️ (@TimBeiko) April 11, 2024

The basis for the update will be the already approved EIP-3074. It will add new features for wallets, including recovering lost keys.

To use the tool, users must transfer ownership of their assets to an originator contract via a digital signature, which performs transactions and function calls on their behalf.

Web3 researcher cygaar explained that EIP turns wallets into smart contracts by adding two new operating instructions – AUTH and AUTHCALL.

So how can we turn existing EOAs into smart contracts?

By adding two new opcodes (computer instructions) – AUTH and AUTHCALL. These two opcodes work in tandem to allow a smart contract to act on behalf of an EOA.

Here's a quick overview on how they work (feel free to skip).

— cygaar (@0xCygaar) April 11, 2024

AUTH validates the user's signature and intended action, and AUTHCALL calls the target contract to execute with the “sender's address as the caller.”

Pectra will also introduce a feature to “aggregate” transactions into groups and the ability to delegate funds.

Another key benefit of EIP-3074 is that users will not need ETH in the wallet to send transactions, as the entity behind the originator contract can pay for transactions “upfront.”

DeFi developer Llama 0xngmi called the main disadvantage of EIP that “now it will be possible to completely deplete the address, all the tokens, everything NFTall DeFi positions with just one bad signature.”

downside of EIP 3074 is that now it'll be possible to fully drain an address (all tokens, all nfts, all defi positions…) with only one bad signature

— 0xngmi (@0xngmi) April 11, 2024

While the update raises security concerns, “people will always find a way to lose their money,” said Gaslite co-founder Harrison Leggio.

Lots of drama over EIP-3074 introducing new security concerns and attack vectors.

Guess what?

People literally GIVE THEIR PRIVATE KEYS TO TRADING BOTS. People will always find a way to lose their money.

— Pop Punk (@PopPunkOnChain) April 11, 2024

Earlier, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin spoke about the next stage of the blockchain roadmap – The Purge. It is aimed at simplifying the network structure and reducing the load on nodes.

In March, he drew attention to the need for internal network scaling and parallelization of rollup processing to build on the success of the Dencun update.