The recent significant rise of Ethereum $ETH has led many to question whether it is related to the recent Pectra upgrade. The answer may not be.
The Pectra upgrade is more like the "finishing touches" of the Cancun upgrade, primarily involving some underlying optimizations and refinements rather than breakthrough technological innovations.
From a technical perspective, the four EIPs included in the Pectra upgrade all point in the same direction: to make Ethereum run more stably and efficiently. EIP-7044's standardization of state expiration, EIP-7524's redefinition of fuel limits, EIP-7697's optimization of transaction pipelines, and EIP-6789's improvements in difficulty adjustments—these are all typical "patch-up" upgrades that address some marginal issues left over from the Cancun upgrade.
The logic that truly determines the price trend of Ethereum this time is actually a "value recovery" after being excessively FUDed.
In the past few months, Ethereum has indeed undergone a round of concentrated skepticism: the decentralization of layer2 liquidity has been exaggerated into an ecological split, comparisons with Solana's performance have been interpreted as a failure of the technical route, and the expansion of various layer2 ecological applications has fallen short of expectations, with narratives around Restaking, modularization, zk, and other technologies failing to capture value, etc.;
When all the focus is on Ethereum's problems, people overlook some key facts: the total locked value in DeFi remains stable at $119B, the Cancun upgrade has indeed significantly reduced layer2 costs, ETF fund inflows continue to strengthen, and new narratives such as RWA and PayFi are also primarily developing within the Ethereum ecosystem.
The fundamentals of Ethereum are not as bad as the market sentiment reflects.
Institutional investors have clearly seen through this emotional imbalance. A typical example is Abraxas Capital's massive purchase of 242,652 ETH (approximately $561 million). Moreover, during the period from May 9 to 14, large ETH transfers (>$1M) also significantly increased, and the ETH balances of institutional wallets have noticeably grown, all of which indicate a planned large-scale accumulation by institutions.
So, if we must find a logic for this round of Ethereum's rise: Ethereum has been excessively FUDed and needs to rediscover its existing value, while institutions have taken the opportunity to buy at a low price?
