Behind the Scenes of Ethereum's Pectra Upgrade: A Data-Driven Analysis

Ethereum's Pectra (Electra) upgrade on May 7, 2025 left block broadcasting latency largely unchanged overall, according to ProbeLab's data analysis. About 70% of online nodes switched to the new fork immediately, with a further ~18% upgrading within five days, and roughly 53% of nodes were running Electra-compatible clients two days before the fork. The median block arrival improved by close to 200ms, but nodes in Africa, Australia and South America saw slower arrivals, and around 5% of blocks missed the 4-second slot deadline.