In the past 24 hours, Ethereum finally broke its usual pattern, bringing a 22% surge after the recent Pectra upgrade, and has now returned above $2,200. Alongside this, Altcoins like Virtual, EIGEN, and SUI have seen around 50% gains within 24 hours.
Compared to other Altcoins' 22% surge, this might seem underwhelming, but the last time Ethereum rose over 22% in 24 hours was on May 23, 2024, when ETH's price increased from around $3,100 to nearly $3,900, a rise of about 25%, driven by the SEC's approval of the spot Ethereum ETF. So what caused this explosive rise this time?
In the past 24 hours, 200,000 people were liquidated globally, with BTC and ETH short sellers suffering massive losses, providing significant fuel for the long positions. A total of $679 million was burned in one day, with the largest single liquidation occurring on Binance's BTCUSDT trading pair, valued at $11.969 million.
Sentiment Not Fully Realized
Even after Bitcoin's price broke $100,000, the Bitcoin Fear and Greed Index remains low at around 70. Previously, in December last year and January this year, when Bitcoin's price exceeded $100,000 and was preparing to break its all-time high, the index was over 80. The expectation of continued market sentiment might be one reason for the market's bullish stance on mainstream cryptocurrencies.
Pectra Upgrade
On May 7, 2025, Ethereum completed its first major upgrade since the Cancun upgrade—Pectra. During the live upgrade, all participating core members smiled radiantly when the upgrade was successful, just like Ethereum holders today.
Covering the execution layer's Prague hard fork and consensus layer's Electra optimization, a total of 11 EIPs were introduced. Key improvements include raising the validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH (EIP-7251), enhancing Blob data processing capabilities (EIP-7691), and optimizing call data fees (EIP-7623).
Blob count doubled to 6, theoretically increasing TPS to 500, with potential for further expansion through the upcoming Fusaka upgrade and DAS technology. Despite L2's rapid development, Vitalik noted that L1 performance remains fundamental to decentralization and asset interaction. Additionally, through EIP-7002, validators can safely exit the mainnet without hot keys, improving system security and stability.
Although the market has raised questions about increased centralization post-upgrade, the Pectra upgrade indeed laid the foundation for Ethereum's high performance, strong security, and low cost, preparing it for the "new" Ethereum era and subsequent large-scale applications.
Market Outlook
Famous Crypto YouTuber Crypto Rover believes Ethereum is still undervalued, presenting a chart showing that the current ETH/BTC MVRV ratio and price are at historical lows. In similar past stages (green areas in the chart), this was often accompanied by ETH price rebounds or relatively strong cycles.
Global Macro Investor's CEO and founder Raoul Pal is relatively optimistic, believing the current market has a "fruit-like" feel. While there might be brief, intense correction waves, the trend should continue until around August. He also reminds the market to "enjoy the fruit rationally" and doesn't believe August is the cycle's peak, but expects the second phase correction to occur in August, followed by a bear market or the final rally in 2026.
Renowned researcher CryptoAmsterdam shared an ETH and Bitcoin similar trend range chart, suggesting that if ETH can successfully stabilize around the current $2,000 "low point", it could bring an Alt Season to the market.
Crypto Predictions "Crypto_Twittier" believes that while ETH has broken the downward trend, it will encounter resistance at $2,196 before the Alt Season, and only after this pullback breakthrough will the Alt Season begin.
This is ETH's 18th time breaking $2,000. Are your E-guards still around from the last time?
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