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Could Pectra reset ETH’s bull case?

Ethereum

Macro

Written by The Kaiko Research Team

12/05/2025

    Welcome to the Data Debrief!

    Welcome back to the Data Debrief! Ethereum surged by nearly 40% last week, outperforming BTC after its largest upgrade to date. Meanwhile, Coinbase made headlines with its $2.9 billion acquisition of Deribit, and New Hampshire became the first U.S. state to approve a crypto reserve law.

    • USDC’s surge amid stablecoin market shifts.

    • Coinbase’s rise to the top among U.S. exchanges.

    • Accelerating inflows into BTC ETFs.

    Trend of the Week

    ETH surges post-PeCtra.

    Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade on May 7th introduced 11 major improvements to staking and user experience, driving a 40% price rally last week.

    BTC serves as a diversifier.

    Bitcoin has proven to be an effective portfolio diversifier, with low correlations to traditional assets ranging from -0.2 to +0.2 over as of early May.

    Tokenization vs. AI.

    The Kaiko Tokenization index demonstrates stronger risk-adjusted returns with a 0.9 Sharpe ratio, while the AI index currently lags with a negative Sharpe of -0.37 .

    Bybit Liquidty Recovers.

    In February, Bybit was hit by a record-breaking $1.5 billion hack. Yet within just 30 days, Bitcoin liquidity on the platform had fully recovered to pre-hack levels.

    Chart of the Week

    Could Pectra reset ETH’s bull case?

    Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, launched on May 7, delivered 11 substantial protocol improvements, most notably raising validator caps and adding smart wallet capabilities.

    The upgrade triggered a sharp rally, with ETH surging 25% between May 7 and 9—its strongest post-upgrade performance on record and a clear break from the “sell-the-news” trends that typically follow major Ethereum upgrades.

    While the broader risk-on mood was bolstered by positive headlines such as the UK-US trade deal and a 90-day China-US ceasefire, ETH’s outperformance relative to BTC suggested that the upgrade itself was the primary catalyst. This was evident as the ETH/BTC ratio, which had been steadily declining since the 2022 Merge, rebounded from 0.019 to 0.024 last week, marking a notable shift in market dynamics.

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    Data Used In This Analysis

    Our industry-leading research is the direct result of combining our proprietary data with world-class in-house experts. Bringing the very best of Kaiko’s people and data together, we unlock the unique insights that form the basis for our discoveries and analysis. We believe in doing so, our data speaks for itself, helping both our clients and the wider industry get a better understanding of the crypto ecosystem, and the evolving trends and patterns in motion at a regional and global scale.

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