Listen, an interesting story happened in the cryptocurrency market. Ethereum, the second largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, has skyrocketed by almost 29% in just a couple of days. To be precise, its price has jumped from 1939 to over $2,400. This happened immediately after the launch of the update called Pectra, which the developers have already called the largest in the history of the network.
So what's the big deal about this Pectra? The update affected important parts of the Ethereum blockchain. It has improved the usability, increased the scalability of the network, and given more flexibility to those involved in staking — this is when users "freeze" their coins to keep the network running and earn rewards for it. In addition, the developers have implemented account abstraction (which makes it easier to interact with wallets), simplified data storage, and made it easier for validators to manage their funds.
Interestingly, prior to this update, the Ethereum market had dropped significantly, by almost 33% in three months. The reasons? The trade war between the United States and other countries, as well as global tensions. But on Thursday, there was a twist: Trump signed a trade deal with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and markets began to bounce back. Bitcoin broke through the $100,000 mark again, while Ethereum returned to the $2,000 mark and even jumped higher to 2,400.
It was not without its oddities. Although the price of Ethereum has risen sharply, money continues to be withdrawn from American ETFs (exchange-traded funds). The last day of the inflow of funds there was a week ago, according to CoinGlass.
Things also went up in the entire crypto market — the overall growth was 3.5%, and some tokens from the Ethereum ecosystem generally showed explosive growth. Pepe's meme coin grew by 43%, Virtuals — by 24%, and Uniswap — by 21.5% in just one day.
In general, the market is in full swing. The update proved to be a powerful catalyst. But here's the question: Would you invest in Ethereum now, or would you wait for the dust to settle?
