What is the real driving force behind this rise of Ethereum?

The significant rise of Ethereum $ETH this time has led many to ask whether it is related to the recent Pectra upgrade. The answer may not be.

The Pectra upgrade is more like the "finishing touches" of the Cancun upgrade, primarily consisting of some underlying optimizations and refinements rather than groundbreaking technological innovations.

From a technical perspective, the four EIPs included in the Pectra upgrade all point in the same direction: making Ethereum run more stably and efficiently. The status expiration standardization of EIP-7044, the redefinition of fuel limits in EIP-7524, the transaction pipeline optimization of EIP-7697, and the difficulty adjustment improvements of EIP-6789 — these are all typical "patching" upgrades that address some marginal issues left after the Cancun upgrade.

The logic that truly determines the price trend of Ethereum this time is actually the "value recovery" after being excessively affected by FUD.

In the past few months, Ethereum has indeed undergone a round of "focused fire" questioning: the decentralization of layer2 liquidity has been amplified into ecological division, the performance comparison with Solana has been interpreted as a technical route failure, and the expansion of various layer2 ecological applications has not met expectations, while the stacking of technical narratives such as Restaking, modularization, and zk has been unable to capture value, and so on;

When all the focus is on the issues of Ethereum, people overlook some key facts: the total value locked in DeFi remains stable at $119B, the Cancun upgrade has significantly reduced layer 2 costs, ETF capital inflows continue to strengthen, and new narratives such as RWA and PayFi are primarily developing within the Ethereum ecosystem.

The fundamentals of large Ether are not as bad as the market sentiment reflects.

Institutional investors have clearly seen through this emotional imbalance. The most typical example is Abraxas Capital's massive purchase of 242,652 ETH (approximately $561 million). Moreover, during the period from May 9 to 14, large ETH transfers ( >$1M) also significantly increased, with institutional-level wallet addresses showing a notable growth in ETH balances, all indicating a planned institutional large-scale accumulation behavior.

So, if we have to find a logic for this round of Ethereum pump: Ethereum has been overly FUDed, and there is a need to rediscover its existing value, while institutions have taken the opportunity to buy the dip?