After last Wednesday's Pectra upgrade, ETH recorded its strongest weekly performance since 2021.
Original title: (Can Pectra, UX and Team Shuffle Revive ETH?)
Compiled by: Patti, ChainCatcher
'One of Bitcoin's most outstanding traits is that its protocol is designed so elegantly and simply.' This is how Vitalik Buterin, the founder of the second-largest cryptocurrency Ethereum, spoke about the largest cryptocurrency Bitcoin.
The timing of this statement coincided with the identity crisis that Ethereum is currently facing.
A week ago, Vitalik Buterin wrote this sentence in his blog post (Simplifying the L1). Three days later, Ethereum developers deployed the most complex upgrade to date on the blockchain.
On one hand, after last Wednesday's Pectra upgrade, ETH recorded its strongest weekly performance since 2021. On the other hand, its co-founder hopes to rebuild the network with a simpler architecture.
Is this the beginning of Ethereum's revival, or is this network, which has been stagnant for years while competitors continue to reach new heights, just facing another false dawn?
In this article, we will explore what changes are happening in Ethereum, why these changes are important, and whether these rapid developments can help Ethereum escape years of stagnation.
Pectra Upgrade: A Key Battle in Ethereum's Revival Attempt
The success or failure of Ethereum's revival attempt largely depends on its recent upgrade.
On May 7, 2024, the Pectra upgrade— the largest code change since The Merge (September 2022) was officially launched. This upgrade made wallets smarter, improved validator efficiency, and reduced Layer 2 fees.
This upgrade ultimately took more than a month longer than originally planned, changing the way Ethereum operates. Among other things, the core content of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-7702 endowed ordinary wallets with smart contract functionality.
This seemingly technical change has, in fact, reshaped the basic user experience.
Anonymous Optimism project contributor Binji wrote on platform X: 'Ethereum finally feels like a modern network.' He added that the Pectra upgrade reduced the number of clicks required for users to 'get things done.'
In simple terms, this upgrade brings the following conveniences to users:
Users can now bundle multiple operations together without having to approve each step of the transaction individually.
Users can pay fees with stablecoins, without having to use Ethereum (ETH) for every transaction.
Dapps can even pay gas fees for users, implementing a 'freemium' model, allowing users to interact without holding any ETH.
For validators, EIP-7251 significantly raised the staking limit from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH. This means lower operating costs, which is particularly beneficial for institutional stakers.
Layer 2 also benefited from this.
EIP-7691 doubles the blob space of each block, helping to keep Layer 2 transaction fees low in the face of increasing demand. This upgrade comes at the right time—Jesse Pollak, a developer from Coinbase's Base Chain, had previously warned that demand for Layer 2 could grow '10 to 20 times' by 2025.
So, can these technological improvements translate into a rebound in market confidence?
Historically, Ethereum's upgrades have often been accompanied by 'buy the rumor, sell the news' situations. After the 'Merge' upgrade in 2022 was completed, the price of ETH fell by more than 30%.
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However, this time may be different, as the code changes are accompanied by a shift in narrative and leadership.
What was the result? Within 40 hours of the Pectra upgrade going live, ETH's price surged by about 40%.
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Vitalik calls for a redesign of the Ethereum user experience
Three days before the official launch of the Pectra upgrade, Vitalik Buterin published perhaps the most important vision statement of his years—(Simplifying the L1).
The core message he conveyed in the article is that Ethereum must become 'close to as simple as Bitcoin' within five years.
For years, Ethereum has increased its complexity to address various technical challenges, and now, this Ethereum co-founder hopes to remove that complexity to ensure the network's long-term viability and resilience.
He pointed out in his vision statement that even high school students could understand Bitcoin's code. In contrast, Ethereum has become increasingly complex, limiting the range of people who can effectively contribute to it.
Vitalik's plan includes three radical proposals:
Replacing the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with RISC-V architecture. RISC-V architecture is simpler and more efficient, promising 'a hundredfold performance improvement.'
Simplifying Ethereum's consensus mechanism with '3-Slot-Finality,' discarding complex systems such as epochs and validator shuffling.
Standardizing the entire technology stack's protocols from data encoding to tree structure.
Restructuring of the Ethereum Foundation's leadership
In February of this year, Aya Miyaguchi, executive director of the Ethereum Foundation, announced her transition to the newly established position of 'Chair,' ending months of community dissatisfaction with the foundation's leadership and direction.
Previously, critics increasingly questioned the foundation's approach—whether prioritizing ideological purity over competitive positioning in an increasingly competitive market could still meet the development needs of Ethereum.
The resulting restructuring was officially finalized at the end of April, marking a significant governance change in the history of the Ethereum Foundation.
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The newly appointed leadership of the foundation quickly clarified its work priorities: expanding Ethereum's mainnet capacity, improving Layer 2 rollups, and enhancing user experience.
The two co-directors wrote in a public statement: 'We are well aware that we need to accelerate the journey for developers, founders, institutions, and others to develop and adopt Ethereum technology.'
For years, the foundation has maintained a 'neutral' stance on ecosystem development, avoiding participation in any activities that appear to be marketing or competitive positioning.
Newly appointed co-director Stańczak stated in an interview with Bankless that improving communication is now a priority for the foundation, and that 'clearly conveying information is also part of marketing.'
This simple statement marks a dramatic shift compared to the foundation's previous reluctance to even acknowledge marketing as a legitimate function.
Challenges still exist
Despite these promising developments in Ethereum, it still faces significant resistance.
Currently, the trading price of Ethereum (ETH) is about $2,200, less than half of its all-time high of $4,878 set in November 2021. In contrast, both Bitcoin and Solana have broken previous records in 2025 while Ethereum still lingers at low levels.
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In March this year, affected by market turbulence triggered by Trump's tariff policies, ETH's decline exceeded that of other mainstream cryptocurrencies, with the price briefly falling below $1,600, marking the lowest level for the coin in a year and a half.
Critics point out that Ethereum's economic model has fundamental problems.
The paradox of Layer 2: The success of Layer 2 scaling means a reduction in transaction volume on the mainnet, which in turn leads to a decrease in ETH's fee income.
Inefficient staking: Before the Pectra upgrade, institutional stakers were forced to operate multiple validation nodes due to staking rules, which increased costs and reduced returns.
Technical debt accumulation: The complexity of Ethereum slows down the pace of innovation and raises the threshold for participation and contribution.
Moreover, competition is becoming increasingly fierce.
In February and April this year, Solana's DEX trading volume surpassed that of Ethereum. Even in the institutional investment sector, Bitcoin ETFs accounted for the majority of investment inflows, while the market acceptance of Ethereum-related products was relatively lukewarm.
The leadership crisis in March only exacerbated these issues.
In this context, it is not difficult to understand why the Ethereum Foundation, Vitalik Buterin, and core developers are now taking action from multiple fronts. After all, maintaining the status quo has become unsustainable.
So, can these changes reverse the challenges that Ethereum has accumulated over the years?
Ethereum transformation calibration
Ethereum's current transformation is not limited to individual upgrade initiatives, but rather a recalibration of its overall development path.
With the advancement of this series of changes, Ethereum has finally realized that outstanding technical capabilities alone are not enough to sustain itself in the cryptocurrency world.
The key lies in the timing of the changes. These changes came only after Ethereum has experienced years of lost market share and poor price performance. Following the Pectra upgrade, ETH's price surged 40%, indicating that investors still have significant interest in Ethereum. However, Ethereum is facing a tough competition against projects that have woven simplicity into their design from the start rather than as an afterthought.
The Ethereum Foundation is bringing technical experts into management positions and acknowledging the importance of marketing work, indicating that it has begun to address the cultural inertia that hinders its competitiveness.
The improvements made by the Pectra upgrade in the validator economic model and L2 scaling will bring positive benefits in the short term. However, in the long run, whether Vitalik's five-year vision for RISC-V architecture can maintain its focus will be a major challenge for Ethereum. After all, in its past development, Ethereum often struggled to maintain focus due to conflicting priorities.
The upcoming next upgrade—Fusaka, will be a key indicator of Ethereum's strategic transformation. If this upgrade places improvements to the mainnet on top of the Layer 2 infrastructure, it will confirm that Ethereum's strategic shift is real and enduring, rather than a temporary measure.
The next 12 months will reveal whether these changes are a revival for Ethereum or merely a slow adaptation to market realities. For investors, whether the Ethereum network can steadfastly pursue its new direction can be glimpsed from the continuous effectiveness of its leadership and the progress of development, which is far more important than any single technological milestone.
If Ethereum can complete this transformation while adhering to its core values, then its vision of a 'world ledger' may reposition ETH as a cornerstone asset of the next-generation global financial system, with a value far exceeding the current $2,200 price level.
