NakamotoDrip

After months of underperforming other digital assets, Ether, the cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain, has soared more than 31% over the past two days.
The primary reasons: a major upgrade and a US-UK trade deal that squeezed the coin’s short sellers.
It’s the first serious rally for Ether in 2025, and welcome relief for Ethereum believers.
The blockchain stumbled as the year began, falling farther than Bitcoin or Solana after President Donald Trump rocked financial markets by imposing aggressive tariffs on goods from scores of nations, including the US’s closest trading partners, Canada and Mexico.
“Ethereum’s breakout doesn’t come as a shock – it’s a long-overdue repricing of quietly growing momentum,” Iliya Kalchev, an analyst at Nexo Dispatch, told DL News.
Bitcoin surge
“For months, ETH lagged behind Bitcoin’s ETF-driven surge, yet it continued to serve as the foundational layer of the digital asset economy – home to the majority of stablecoins, DeFi protocols, and Layer 2 innovation. That kind of relevance doesn’t stay discounted for long.”
On Friday, Ether was trading just above $2,300 — an increase of almost 32% since Wednesday and more than 67% since hitting a two-year low of $1,417 on April 9.
Bitcoin and Solana, meanwhile, have jumped about 7% and 15% over the past two days, respectively.
Analysts attributed Ether’s rally to a major Ethereum upgrade that went live Wednesday.
Increased capacity
Pectra’s improvements dramatically increase functionality of the digital wallets needed to interact with Ethereum-based applications such as decentralised exchanges and lending protocols.
They also increase the capacity of layer 2 blockchains and the efficiency of validators, the computers that process transactions and add new blocks to the Ethereum chain.
“Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade — its most significant protocol change since the 2022 Merge — has reinvigorated sentiment around the asset,” Nikolay Karpenko, senior client relationship manager at B2C2, told DL News.
‘Ethereum has run out of sellers. Everyone who was going to capitulate had already capitulated.’—  Andreas Brekken, Sideshift.ai,
Meanwhile, macroeconomic developments such as the US-UK trade agreement announced Thursday also helped.
The sudden surge of optimism caught short sellers — investors who bet the value of an asset will fall — in a squeeze. Traders had to plunge into the market and buy up Ether as it jumped to exit their positions andavoid further losses.
“Ethereum has run out of sellers. Everyone who was going to capitulate had already capitulated,” Andreas Brekken, founder of Sideshift.ai, told DL News.
“Those sidelined and looking to buy the dip found an excuse in the Pectra upgrade this week and pulled the trigger.”
Pectra’s successful execution is part of an even larger story, according to Carlos Guzman, an analyst at crypto trading firm GSR: a renewed sense of urgency among Ethereum leadership.
“The Ethereum Foundation and core development teams have reorganized their efforts and priorities in response to community feedback,” Guzman said, referring to the Swiss nonprofit co-led by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
More performant
The Ethereum Foundation announced new co-directors in March. Last month, they said they had three priorities for the next year: making Ethereum more performant, ensuring layer 2 blockchains remain affordable, and improving user experience.
The feeling that Ethereum developers and researchers had neglected certain improvements to Ethereum itself has fueled criticism of the Foundation in recent months.
“The new set of priorities they have communicated have been well-received, as has the renewed urgency going into the core protocol development process and efforts to scale [Ethereum],” Guzman said.
But Ether has also benefitted from a modest rally in equities and crypto markets since Trump announced a trade deal with the UK.
The details of the deal have been scarce, The New York Times reported. Broadly speaking, however, they would drop or remove tariffs on US agricultural products and UK steel and automobiles.
Trump has also suggested he was open to lowering tariffs on China, the US’ third-largest trade partner, from 145% to 80%.
Short sellers
The rally in crypto prices has squeezed Ether’s short sellers, analysts said.
“ETH had been underperforming,” Karpenko said. Ether’s value relative to Bitcoin had fallen some 40% in 2025, and traders had bet on its continued decline.
“Once ETH broke above the $2,000 mark, liquidations of short positions added fuel to the upside.”
How high Ether goes from here is anyone’s guess.
“Near term, ETH must now defend the breakout above $2,300 to maintain momentum,” Kalchev said.
All-time high
“The $2,600 level – a resistance zone earlier this year – is the next key test.”
But Karpenko sees Ether’s rally slowing down.
“The pace of gains is likely to moderate following such an aggressive short squeeze,” he said.
“The current move is largely sentiment and positioning-driven — for a sustained uptrend, we’d need to see more consistent demand from real money accounts, and possibly further catalysts such as ETF-related developments or increased on-chain activity.”
But if the broader economy begins to improve, a new all-time high later this year or in early 2026 is “well within reach,” Kalchev said.
Ether hit an all-time high of $4,800 in 2021.