A 42% surge was recorded in Ether’s market capitalization, allowing it to exceed the valuations of Coca-Cola and Alibaba, following the implementation of the Pectra upgrade by Ethereum, which enhanced layer-2 scalability and validator functionalities.
A 42% increase in Ether’s market capitalization was observed over a five-day period, following the successful deployment of Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade on its mainnet.
As of May 12, data from the company tracker 8marketcap indicated that Ether had overtaken Coca-Cola and Alibaba, positioning it as the 39th-largest asset globally by market capitalization. At the time of publication, ETH was being traded around $2,550, with its market capitalization surpassing $308 billion.
In comparison, Coca-Cola shares are traded at approximately $70, resulting in a market capitalization of $303.5 billion, while Alibaba’s stock is priced near $125, with its total market value reaching around $303.7 billion.
The recent movement in ETH’s price has followed a network upgrade that enhanced the storage efficiency of layer-2 scaling data, along with improvements to validator usability and the functionality of smart account wallets.
Ethereum Deploys Pectra Upgrade on Mainnet
Initially slated for release in March 2025, the Pectra upgrade was postponed due to technical issues that were encountered during the testing phase.
On February 24, the Pectra upgrade was launched on Ethereum’s Holesky testnet. However, finalization on the network was not achieved following the deployment, prompting developers to investigate and resolve the problems. Subsequently, on March 5, the upgrade was deployed to the Sepolia testnet, where additional errors were encountered, exacerbated by an attacker who triggered the mining of empty blocks.
In preparation for the final deployment, a new testnet named “Hoodi” was developed by Ethereum core developers, before the upgrade was ultimately launched on the mainnet on May 7.
Through the upgrade, externally owned accounts (EOAs) have been enabled to function as smart contracts, allowing gas fees and transactions to be paid with tokens other than ETH. Additionally, the staking limit for validators was raised from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, streamlining processes for major stakers. Scalability for layer-2 networks was also improved by increasing the number of data blobs permitted per block.
Following the upgrade, a significant rise in ETH’s price has been observed. According to CoinGecko, Ether was being traded at approximately $1,786 on May 7. By May 12, its value had climbed to $2,550, marking a 42% increase.
Security Experts Caution Against Vulnerabilities Following Pectra Upgrade
Despite the benefits, security concerns were introduced by the upgrade. Cybersecurity experts have issued warnings that, following the implementation, a new transaction type could be exploited by malicious actors to gain control over EOAs without requiring users to sign on-chain transactions.
Warnings were previously issued by Solidity smart contract auditor Arda Usman, noting that such vulnerabilities could enable attackers to deplete funds using off-chain signed messages
