On May 7, 2025, Ethereum successfully deployed the Pectra upgrade on mainnet at block 36403, marking an important milestone since The Merge and Dencun. Despite bringing many improvements, the price of ETH has decreased more than 50% over the past year; could this be an opportunity for investors? Let's analyze in detail.
Pectra Launches After a Challenging Testing Journey
After many setbacks, #Pectra was successfully deployed on the Hoodi testnet before going to mainnet as scheduled. The two previous testnets – Holesky and Sepolia – encountered serious technical issues, prompting the team to create the Hoodi testnet to ensure stability. This is an important upgrade, divided into two phases:
Pectra Part 1 (first half of 2025): Focus on improving performance and user experience.
Fusaka Part 2 (2026): Integration of EVM Object Format (EOF) and PeerDAS to enhance performance and security.
Major Changes from Pectra
Pectra offers many important improvement proposals (EIPs):
EIP-7251: Increase staking limit from 32 ETH to 2,048$ETH , helping large validators like Lido or Rocket Pool consolidate stakes, reducing the number of operating nodes.
EIP-7702: Upgrade Account Abstraction with gas fee sponsorship, transaction batching, session keys, passkeys, and wallet recovery when losing private keys, improving user experience.
EIP-7002: Validators withdraw ETH directly from the execution layer, increasing staking flexibility.
EIP-7594: PeerDAS supports Layer 2, optimizing costs and performance.
EIP-7692: Optimize EVM with a new contract format (EOF).
EIP-2935: Enhance verification of historical data using the nearest block hash.
Pectra improves network performance, supports DeFi, staking, and multi-chain dApps. Users benefit from friendlier wallets, developers have new tools to optimize smart contracts, while staking becomes more flexible with EIP-7002 and EIP-4788.
Price Volatility "Post-Pectra"
Since the announcement of Pectra in March 2024, the price of ETH has dropped over 50%, currently hovering around 1,806 USD – the lowest since March 2023. Despite the successful upgrade, the market reacted negatively, possibly due to sell pressure or unmet expectations.
Impact on the Crypto Market
This event brings many signals:
Increase DeFi potential: Pectra supports Layer 2 and staking, boosting projects like Haedal (TVL 200 million USD) and Solana (146 USD).
Short-term volatility: The drop in ETH price may create buying opportunities, especially as crypto fund inflows reached 3.4 billion USD last week.
Long-term growth: Forecasts predict a 330 billion USD accumulation into Bitcoin by 2029 (Bernstein), and the Fusaka upgrade in 2026 could recover ETH.
Future Prospects
If ETH leverages Pectra to increase performance and attract validators, the price could recover in the next 1-2 years, especially as Fusaka 2026 integrates new technology. However, a clear legal framework is needed to optimize potential.
Conclusion: Will Pectra Reshape Ethereum?
#Ethereum successfully deployed Pectra, bringing staking improvements (EIP-7251), user-friendly wallets (EIP-7702), and Layer 2 support (EIP-7594), despite the ETH price dropping 50% to 1,806 USD. This upgrade opens up potential for DeFi and dApps, promising a bright future if the market recovers. Investors should closely monitor to assess opportunities.
Risk warning: Crypto investment carries high risks due to price volatility and legal uncertainties. Consider carefully before participating.