Ethereum Soars 40% in Five Days
The market capitalization of Ethereum climbed 42% within five days after the successful deployment of Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade on the mainnet.
On May 12, data from company tracker 8marketcap showed Ether overtaking Coca-Cola and Alibaba to become the 39th-largest asset globally by market capitalization.
At the time, ETH was trading at approximately $2,550, pushing its market cap above $308 billion.
For comparison, Coca-Cola shares are priced around $70, with a total market cap of $303.5 billion.
Alibaba, trading at roughly $125 per share, holds a market capitalization of $303.7 billion.
Ether’s latest price movement follows the recent network upgrade that enhanced the storage of layer-2 scaling data, improved validator user experience, and introduced upgrades for smart account wallets.
Initially planned for a March 2025 rollout, Pectra encountered setbacks due to technical difficulties during testing phases.
The upgrade was first deployed on Ethereum’s Holesky testnet on February 24.
However, the deployment failed to finalize, prompting developers to investigate the root cause.
On March 5, Pectra was then introduced to the Sepolia testnet, where further issues arose, including disruptions caused by an attacker mining empty blocks.
To ensure a smooth mainnet deployment, Ethereum’s core development team launched a new testnet called “Hoodi” before successfully releasing the upgrade to the mainnet on May 7.
With Pectra, externally owned accounts (EOAs) gained the ability to function as smart contracts, enabling gas fees and payments to be covered using tokens other than ETH.
The upgrade also raised the validator staking cap from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, streamlining processes for larger stakers.
Additionally, it increased the number of data blobs per block, enhancing scalability for layer-2 solutions.
Following the upgrade, ETH's price surged. On May 7, Ether was valued at around $1,786, according to CoinGecko. By May 12, it had reached $2,550, marking a 42% price increase.
Despite the technical improvements, the upgrade has raised security concerns.
Experts have cautioned that malicious actors could exploit a newly introduced transaction type to gain control of EOAs without requiring users to sign onchain transactions.
Arda Usman, a Solidity smart contract auditor, previously warned Cointelegraph that such vulnerabilities could allow attackers to drain funds via offchain signed messages.
Sources:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ether-market-cap-surges-past-coca-cola-alibaba-pectra-upgrade
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