Ethereum (ETH) Sees Best Day Since 2021 in 20% Surge

Ethereum prices have skyrocketed almost 20% over the past 24 hours to reclaim $2,200 in a two-month high.

ETH tapped $2,234 during Friday morning trading in Asia as it climbed from below $1,900 on Thursday. The asset has now gained 26% over the past fortnight and more than 50% over the past month, recovering from a dump to bear market lows around $1,400.

The big move comes as the long-awaited Pectra update went live on mainnet on May 7.

Ethereum’s Best Day Since 2021

According to CoinGlass, more than $280 million in short ETH positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours. It’s Ethereum’s best day since 2021, wrote Bankless on May 9; however, the asset has had several similar spurts of action over the past year.

Between May 20 and 22 last year, ETH surged 23% from $3,070 to just below $3,800, and between November 6 and 10, it pumped almost 30% from $2,400 to over $3,100, so these moves are not unusual.

Analysts are starting to turn bullish with longer-term predictions for ETH now that the asset has bounced off the bottom. ‘MMCrypto’ saw a target of $3,700 should the asset return to the top of this wedge pattern.

ETHEREUM TARGET: $3’700 pic.twitter.com/hNJkh4AajX

— MMCrypto (@MMCrypto) May 9, 2025

Web3 growth manager Cas Abbé commented that Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade has been really successful. Hours after the upgrade, ETH annual inflation dropped from 0.7% to -0.5% as issuance turned deflationary again, he observed.

Also, the daily ETH burn has doubled since the Pectra Upgrade, “which is the reason behind ETH’s pump,” he said before adding:

“We all know that ETH has been underperforming this entire cycle, due to a lack of demand and increasing supply. If ETH burn increases, the supply issue will be resolved, and it will eventually attract demand too. It feels like $3K ETH in Q2 is coming.”

Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade has been really successful.

Hours after the Pectra Upgrade, ETH annual inflation dropped from 0.7% to -0.53%.

In simple terms, ETH has turned deflationary again.

Also, daily ETH burn has doubled since Pectra Upgrade, which is the reason behind ETH’s… pic.twitter.com/5uOJ4uLPMw

— Cas Abbé (@cas_abbe) May 8, 2025

Stablecoin and Tokenization Gold Rush

The stablecoin and tokenization gold rush is going to usher in a huge wave of net new adoption for crypto over the coming years, said Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano, who added.

“At the center of it all is Ethereum – the home of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.”

Ethereum is the industry standard for real-world asset tokenization. According to RWA.xyz, Ethereum has a 58% market share for tokenized assets with almost $7 billion on-chain, excluding stablecoins.

When stablecoins are included, Ethereum is still the industry leader with a 55% RWA market share, followed by Tron with almost 30%, but this is primarily due to Tether.