PANews reported on May 5th that according to CoinDesk, the Bollinger Bands for the ETH/BTC exchange rate have narrowed to the tightest level since June 2020, indicating that market volatility may be about to increase. Typically, Bollinger Band contraction usually signals an imminent price breakout that could trigger significant fluctuations. This technical signal appears on the eve of Ethereum's Pectra upgrade on May 7th. The upgrade aims to improve network scalability and validator operational efficiency, including raising the maximum staking limit for individual validators from 32 ETH to 2048 ETH, and increasing the number of "blob" data units per block from 3 to up to 9. Additionally, Pectra will introduce the EVM Object Format (EOF) to optimize smart contract structure.
Analysis firm Nansen pointed out that the Pectra upgrade will benefit Layer 2 networks the most by expanding blob capacity, further consolidating Ethereum's position as a data availability layer and strengthening its Rollup-centric scaling strategy. Sectors such as DeFi, Non-Fungible Tokens, and blockchain games may also benefit from this upgrade.
