Ethereum outperforms market surging to $3900 after ETF approval, Pectra upgrade in sight

Ethereum’s price has climbed to a two-month high of more than $3900 less than a week after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved 19b-4 filings for eight spot exchange-traded funds (ETF)-related to the digital asset.

This caps a week of positive performance for Ethereum, significantly outpacing the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization. During the reporting period, ETH’s value increased by approximately 27%, while Bitcoin saw a modest gain of 2%.

New ATH?

Several stakeholders highlighting how the spot Bitcoin ETFs catalyzed a 70% surge in BTC prices believe that ETH’s price could follow a similar trajectory toward a new all-time high.

The experts noted that the ETF approval showed that crypto had gained more recognition as a viable financial asset class and would witness more institutional adoption.

MicroStrategy executive chairman Michael Saylor corroborated this view during a recent podcast appearance. According to him, the approval of an ETH ETF has further legitimized the emerging industry, thereby encouraging institutions to allocate more capital to various digital assets. This comes after Saylor had recently stated Ethereum ETFs would never be approved and Ethereum labeled a security.

Meanwhile, Arthur Cheong, founder of DeFiance Capital, said ETH’s price could hit $4,500 before the ETFs begin trading because the asset is currently underrepresented within crypto portfolios.

Banking giant JPMorgan has predicted that the ETF will launch before the US presidential elections.

Pectra upgrade

Another major catalyst that would fuel ETH’s upward momentum is its upcoming Pectra upgrade, which core developers plan to launch during the first quarter of next year.

Pectra is Ethereum’s next major upgrade following the successful implementation of Dencun in March. The update aims to enhance the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) with the Ethereum Virtual Machine Object Format (EOF) and includes 11 improvement proposals.

Notably, the developers said they would replace the account abstraction EIP-3074 with the more advanced EIP-7702, introduced by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. EIP-7702 enables Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs) to operate as smart contract wallets during transactions, streamlining the user experience and boosting security.