The crypto market is down 5.3% to around $2.99 trillion in the last trading day. Traders are, nonetheless, bullish about what lies ahead. For Ethereum holders, however, bulls must show their hand more convincingly before they can fully commit.
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Ethereum Underperforming Despite Pectra Deployment On Sepolia Testnet
From the daily chart, ETH is down nearly 50% from its 2024 highs, trading at $2,100. This is an improvement from the near-$2,000 level seen in late February. Despite the current state of price action, traders are confident that the eventual activation of Pectra in March 2025 could catalyze demand.
According to reports, Pectra was deployed to the Sepolia testnet this week. This is a major step since Pectra first launched on the Holesky testnet after delays caused by incorrect deposit contract addresses.
Sepolia has successfully upgraded to Pectra
(Hope I don’t jinx it this time) pic.twitter.com/pPtufWbHh2
— terence (@terencechain) March 5, 2025
While currently on Sepolia, developers have identified minor issues, most of them related to custom deposit contracts, which in turn raise concerns about execution-layer clients processing transactions effectively. There are also issues with empty blocks.
looks like sepolia has some issue after pectra
a lot of empty blocks pic.twitter.com/0kDTyBUvNn
— Emiliano Bonassi (@emilianobonassi) March 5, 2025
With these lingering concerns, developers are working to address all issues before the All Core Developers call in the coming weeks.
Once Pectra goes live, several improvements will be added to the mainnet. Some of these include enhancements to user experience, especially for those who frequently engage with crypto wallets. Other major upgrades Pectra introduces include increasing the validator staking limit from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH and raising the maximum blob count to further boost Layer-2 scalability.
All these upgrades are expected to cement Ethereum as a top smart contracts platform, potentially surpassing competitors like Solana.
However, no one knows exactly how ETH prices will react. If historical price action following key hard forks is any indication, ETH holders may have to endure even more losses in the coming months.
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Will ETH Tank?
Analysts at IntoTheBlock note that every time Ethereum activates key upgrades, ETH prices tend to drop despite the initial hype before these changes are implemented.
When Ethereum activated The Merge in 2022, transitioning the chain from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake network, ETH prices ended up tanking to below $1,000 by the end of the year.
Roughly a year later, in early 2024, when Dencun went live, ETH prices fell from $4,100 to $2,100 by August 2024. Like The Merge, Dencun was a critical upgrade that significantly allowed Layer-2 rollup platforms like Base and Arbitrum to scale. By introducing proto-danksharding under EIP-4844, the cost of rollups dropped by 99%. Even after this successful deployment, ETH prices sold off before recovering in late 2024.
It remains to be seen whether Pectra will become another “sell the news” event, potentially forcing ETH below the critical support level at $2,000.
Ethereum remains a top smart contracts platform, and many analysts consider ETH one of the best coins to buy in 2025. This is despite the existence of competitive platforms like Solana, from which tens of thousands of meme coins have been launched.
In Peter Brandt’s assessment, ETH could shake off its current weaknesses and surge above $4,100, possibly reaching as high as $6,000 in the coming years. Key drivers will include institutional adoption and a market-wide recovery, especially if there is follow-through and a crypto reserve is created in the United States in 2025.
- Pectra transitions to Sepolia testnet
- Mainnet set for late Q1 2025 to early April 2025
- Will ETH prices defy historical trends and surge after this upgrade?
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The post Pectra Live on Testnet: But Will Ethereum Follow Historical Post-Hard Fork Trends? appeared first on 99Bitcoins.
