Ethereum completes Pectra upgrade, but ETH price remains pressured
On May 7, 2025, the Ethereum network successfully implemented the highly anticipated Pectra upgrade, considered the largest since the 'The Merge' in 2022. The upgrade integrates improvements from the Prague and Electra proposals, covering both the execution layer and the consensus layer of the network.
Among the main enhancements are: 
• EIP-7702: introduces account abstraction, allowing common wallets to temporarily behave like smart contracts, enabling batch transactions, payment of fees with different tokens, and use of session keys. 
• EIP-7251: increases the staking limit for validators from 32 to 2,048 ETH, reducing the number of validators needed and improving network efficiency.
• EIP-7742: dynamically adjusts blob capacity, preparing the network for future scalability improvements and optimizing data storage for layer two (L2) solutions.
Despite the technical improvements, the ETH price did not show significant reaction. At the time of the upgrade, ETH was trading at approximately $1,821, with a 2.94% increase in the last 24 hours, but still accumulating a drop of 45.67% in 2025.
Analysts attribute the lack of price momentum to factors such as the fragmentation of the Ethereum ecosystem, with the proliferation of L2 solutions, and internal challenges within the development team.
Additionally, the market may be adopting a 'sell the news' stance, common after major upgrades.
The community is now watching how these changes will impact the adoption and performance of the network in the long term, especially in areas such as decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain-based gaming.