Written by: Haotian
Many people are wondering if the significant rise of $ETH is related to the recent Pectra upgrade. The answer might not be so.
The Pectra upgrade is more like the "concluding work" of the Cancun upgrade, mainly focusing on some underlying optimizations and detail improvements, rather than breakthrough technological innovations.
From a technical perspective, the four EIPs included in the Pectra upgrade all point in the same direction: making Ethereum run more stably and efficiently. The state expiration standardization of EIP-7044, the redefinition of gas limits in EIP-7524, the transaction pipeline optimization of EIP-7697, and the difficulty adjustment improvement of EIP-6789 are all typical "patching and fixing" upgrades that address some edge issues left after the Cancun upgrade.
The real logic determining Ethereum's price trend this time is actually a "value restoration" after being overly FUD.
In the past few months, Ethereum has indeed experienced a round of concentrated questioning: layer2 liquidity dispersion was magnified into ecosystem fragmentation, performance comparisons with Solana were interpreted as technical route failure, and the expansion of layer2 ecosystem applications was not as expected. Technologies like Restaking, modularization, and zk narrative stacking could not capture value.
When all focus was on Ethereum's problems, people overlooked some key facts: DeFi total locked value remains stable at $119B, the Cancun upgrade indeed significantly reduced layer2 costs, ETF fund inflow continues to strengthen, and new narratives like RWA and PayFi are mainly developing in the Ethereum ecosystem.
Ethereum's fundamentals are not as bad as market sentiment suggests.
Institutional investors have clearly seen through this emotional imbalance. The most typical example is Abraxas Capital's massive purchase of 242,652 ETH (about $561 million). Moreover, during May 9-14, large ETH transfers (>$1M) significantly increased, and the ETH balance of institutional-level wallet addresses notably grew, indicating planned large-scale positioning by institutions.
So, if we must find a logic for this round of Ethereum's rise: Ethereum has been overly FUD, needs to rediscover its existing value, and institutions took the opportunity to buy the dips?
