Ether’s market value increased by 42%, overtaking Coca-Cola and Alibaba after Ethereum applied the Pectra upgrade, enhancing layer-2 scaling and verified features.
Ether’s market value increased 42% in five days because of the triumphant debut of Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade on its mainnet.
In May 12, the company data observer 8 market cap indicates Ether exceeds Coca-Cola and Alibaba, ranking as the world’s 39th-largest asset around $2,550 at the reporting time, with a market value of surpassing $308 billion.
In contrast, Coca-Cola stock trades at about $70, with a market value of $303.5 billion. Alibaba stock trades at about $125, with a market value of $303.7 billion.
ETH’s recent price rise happened shortly after a network upgrade that made it easier to store data from layer-2 solutions and improved the experience for validators and users of smart wallets.
Ethereum Launches Pectra Upgrade on Mainnet
Initially planned for March 2025, Pectra experienced setbacks after technical problems occurred during testing.
On February 24, the upgrade was launched on Ethereum’s Holesky testnet. After the launch, the upgrade did not finalise properly, so developers looked into the problem and worked on fixing it. On March 5, the Pectra upgrade was introduced to the Sepolia testnet, but developers faced errors that were made worse by an attacker who caused empty blocks to be mined.
To get ready for the upgrade, Ethereum developers created a new test network called ‘Hoodi’ before launching the upgrade on the main network on May 7.
With the upgrade, regular accounts (EOAs) can now act like smart contracts, allowing them to pay for gas fees and make payments using tokens other than ETH. Also, the amount of ETH required for validator staking was raised from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, making it easier for large stakers. The upgrade also increased the number of data blobs per block, improving scalability for layer-2 networks.
According to the reports of CoinGecko, after the upgrade, ETH’s price has increased. On May 7, at present Ether trades at around $1,786. On May 12, Ether reached as high as $2,550, expressing a 42% surge in value.
Security Risks Highlighted Post-Pectra Upgrade
Remain, the upgrade opened up security gaps. Post upgrade, cybersecurity analysts have warned that attackers might take advantage of a new payment type to manage EOAs without users signing on-chain payments.
Solidity smart contract auditor Arda Usman had earlier warned Cointelegraph that these weaknesses could let attackers steal funds using off-chain signed messages.
Read also:- Expert Outlook Turns Bullish with Bitcoin Nearing $104K
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