The Pectra upgrade of Ethereum went live without a hitch, but it didn’t serve as rocket fuel at ETH’s price.
The world’s second-largest cryptocurrency was trading sideways after the much-anticipated code change was confirmed on Wednesday.
ETH is currently hovering for around $1,830. In other words, it continues to be traded 40% lower than last year.
That was the same thing after that. Ethereum Completed the “merge” and made an ambitious switch from proof of work to proof of stake consensus.
In September 2022, prices remained flat immediately after that upgrade, but fell on subsequent days.
Analysts often point to Ethereum upgrades as “selling news” events. Because excitement doesn’t always lead to pressure.
Pectra is designed to improve the usability of ETH owners and validators alike, and consists of 11 individual Ethereum improvement proposals.
But the more pressing issue for today’s markets is about today’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly lobbyed the Fed to cut interest rates, and Jerome Powell refuses to do so until inflation cools.
Latest data from the CME FedWatch tool suggests that investors believe there is a 95.6% chance that the cost of borrowing will remain frozen.
Meanwhile, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, is betting on speeding up the Ethereum blockchain in the long run and creating infrastructure to help Bitcoin accelerate adoption.
Things like Bitcoin and Solana hit all-time highs this year, but ETH is below the record price of $4,891 set in November 2021.
Edited by Stacy Elliott.