Important takeouts:
Reclaiming the $2,200 level is ETH's first price challenge.
ETH prices could recover if Pectra upgrades lead to a surge in DAPP and Ethereum Network activity.
Ethereum successfully implemented a key network upgrade on May 7th, but the price of Ether (ETH) and its derivative metrics had little response to the upgrade. The inactive response surprised traders and analysts, questioning whether ETH still had a real chance to climb to 22% to score the $2,200 level.
Eth Futures Premium is below the 5% neutral threshold, indicating that there is no appetite deficiency from leveraged bulls. More importantly, this indicator remains unchanged at 3% after the Pectra upgrade, suggesting that traders did not adjust their position despite successful upgrade deployment.
As the risk of a recession arises amidst the uncertainty of the global trade conflict, a modest response can be explained in part by focusing on investors' macroeconomic issues. However, the lack of interest in traders in ether predates the recent deterioration of risk aversion conditions. In fact, ETH was 28% below the market capitalization of the broader cryptocurrency in the first three months of 2025.
The lower price impact after Pectra upgrade reflects wider dissatisfaction, as competing blockchains gain traction.
Historically, network activity for high Ethereum base tier fees may be limited, but these costs have fallen below $1 since mid-February. Furthermore, based on data from Token Terminal, Ethereum's main layer 2 solution, currently has 10 million fewer active users than Solana's 82.2 million and BNB chain's 25.9 million, according to data from Token Terminal.
Ethereum will lag behind DAPP interoperability – will that hurt ETH prices?
Solana dominates the decentralized exchange sector, particularly with token launches, by providing an integrated user experience. Similarly, high lipids outperform the expectations of permanent futures trading, indicating that traders' main focus is not necessarily on Ethereum's decentralization and security. Meanwhile, Tron has made a major invasion into the Stablecoin market.
Ethereum's leadership in Total Value Lock (TVL) is uncontroversial at $53.7 billion. However, according to Defilama, this has mostly benefited ETH owners, as network charges have been relatively low over the last 30 days. For comparison, Tron accumulated a fee of $51.8 million over the same period, while Solana won $39.4 million.
Noam Hurwitz, head of engineering at Alchemy, noted that Ethereum blob fees have fallen to the lowest possible level since the Pectra upgrade. In the case of Hurwitz, Ether's success depends on the scalability of the base layer, including further improvements to the rollup mechanism and ultimately a more seamless user experience.
Related: Standard Chartered Forecasts Predict BNB More than doubled in 2025
Bridging assets and data across Ethereum's Layer-2 ecosystem has long been a challenge, but users of Solana and BNB chains can easily switch between multiple distributed applications (DAPPS). Upgrading Pectra is a step in the right direction, but this problem does not resolve. This explains why ETH was unable to regain the $2,200 level seen in early March.
As Ether prices rise 22% from the current 1,810 level, investors may need the peace of mind that network progress will lead to clear benefits, via deposits or layer 2 growth. Ultimately, to promote wider adoption of DAPP, durability improvements in yields or stronger incentives are required, which creates an increase in demand for ETH within the ecosystem.
This article is for general informational purposes and is not intended to be considered legal or investment advice, and should not be done. The views, thoughts and opinions expressed here are the authors alone and do not necessarily reflect or express Cointregraph's views and opinions.
