Ethereum Surges Over 40% in Three Days, Market Cap Tops $300 Billion — Ahead of Coca-Cola

#Ethereum #Coca-Cola #CryptoMarket

The crypto world has been buzzing lately. The phrase “the bull market is back” is no longer just a slogan — it’s something you can literally see reflected in people’s account balances. Bitcoin has reclaimed the $100,000 mark, and ETH, XRP, BNB, Solana, Dogecoin, and ADA have all taken their turns in the spotlight. Among them, Solana is up more than 21%, BNB has climbed over 10%, ADA over 15%, and Dogecoin has jumped a whopping 37%. But without a doubt, the biggest showstopper has been Ethereum’s explosive rally — a more than 40% surge in just 72 hours, with its price topping $2,600 at one point and a peak gain of 45%. Compared to its peers, it’s clearly leading the pack among large-cap cryptocurrencies.

Even more staggering — according to the latest market data, Ethereum’s market cap has now broken past $300 billion, hitting as high as $309.52 billion within 24 hours, with a maximum daily gain of over 8.4%. That means ETH has now surpassed Coca-Cola (at $303.53 billion) and climbed to №39 on the global asset market cap ranking.

This kind of rally isn’t just about overall crypto market momentum. It’s the product of a trifecta: broader recovery across digital assets, increased global attention brought by Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, and even policy signals indicating a possible easing of trade tensions. Let’s break down Ethereum’s surge from these three perspectives.

Trade Tensions Easing: A Hidden Catalyst
Over the past two years, the global economy has been heavily affected by geopolitical tensions — especially the trade friction between China and the U.S., and between the U.S. and Europe. These conflicts introduced major uncertainty into global asset allocation. But as we’ve entered 2025, with Trump returning for a second term, his pivot to “reciprocal tariffs” hit the market like a shockwave. Those steep tariffs effectively cut the crypto bull market in half.

However, in recent weeks, Trump has sent positive signals in both trade negotiations and potential agreements — and that’s had a huge effect on market sentiment.

Markets are incredibly sensitive. Even the slightest easing of trade tension causes capital to flow back into high-risk assets. And given the volatile and high-reward nature of crypto, it naturally becomes a top destination.

Especially with platform assets like Ethereum, it’s not just about price. Ethereum underpins the entire ecosystems of DeFi, NFTs, GameFi, and now, hot AI-on-chain applications. So when the macro environment isn’t so “nerve-wracking,” both institutional and retail investors are willing to pull capital out of U.S. Treasuries, gold, or even real estate and give crypto another spin.

In a way, this ETH rally can be viewed as the “return of safe-haven capital.” Sounds like a paradox? In the crypto world, it’s the reality. When policy outlooks become more moderate, risk assets often charge even harder.

Global Crypto Momentum: This Is No Solo Act
Let’s be real — this current crypto rally is no longer about just one or two coins going solo. Unlike 2021, today’s crypto ecosystem has clearly entered a phase of industry-wide linkage and coordination. Bitcoin breaks out, and naturally, Ethereum — the second-largest chain by market cap — becomes the next logical runner-up (aside from extreme exceptions, of course).

Looking at capital flows: According to data from CoinShares, crypto asset funds have seen three consecutive weeks of net inflows, totaling over $2.6 billion. While Bitcoin ETFs still take the lion’s share, interest in an ETH ETF is heating up. Even Grayscale’s ETH fund has flipped back to a premium — a clear sign that markets are ramping up their bets on a spot ETH ETF.

Now look at the on-chain data: the number of active addresses on Ethereum’s mainnet jumped 15% in the past 72 hours. DEXs like Uniswap, Sushiswap, and Curve all saw trading volumes increase between 20–35%, showing that not only is the capital coming in — it’s moving.

Meanwhile, the rise of Solana, Layer 2, and AI-themed chains are all closely tied to Ethereum. In particular, user return and TVL growth on Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum and Optimism significantly strengthen Ethereum’s fundamentals — because ultimately, Layer 2s still settle on the mainnet, making ETH the “tax collector” of this highway.

Put simply, ETH’s rise is not an isolated event — it’s the natural result of an entire crypto industry chain gaining momentum.

Pectra Upgrade: A Technological Magnet for Global Attention
Of course, another major reason ETH is outpacing its peers is something technical that can’t be ignored: the Pectra upgrade. On May 7, Ethereum successfully implemented the Pectra upgrade, introducing several critical technical improvements. These included higher staking limits and EIP-7702 for account abstraction, greatly enhancing Ethereum’s usability and flexibility. It may also help lower network fees.

For those familiar with Ethereum’s history, upgrades like “Constantinople,” “London,” and “The Merge” come to mind. This latest “Pectra” upgrade should be seen as a key relay station in Ethereum’s long-term roadmap.

In short, Pectra has two core goals:

Improving L1 execution efficiency: optimizing EVM logic, reducing gas usage, and boosting mainnet throughput;
Account Abstraction: a long-awaited change that makes “smart wallets” truly possible — users will no longer need to manage seed phrases and might even log in via biometric or social credentials, massively lowering Web3’s barrier to entry.
Behind these features is a huge amount of code refactoring and security upgrades. It may not sound “sexy” to the average user, but for developers and institutional investors, this is a critical turning point for composable finance going mainstream.

There’s also a less obvious but equally powerful market effect: every time Ethereum undergoes a major upgrade, market expectations surge. Why? Because these upgrades mean the chain is more capable of supporting large-scale ecosystems and scalable applications — and that expectation itself becomes a price driver.

In short, this upgrade not only delivered real functional enhancements but also infused investors with fresh confidence — becoming a key technical foundation behind this current rally. These Ethereum initiatives are also seen as necessary countermeasures to rising competition from fast-growing challengers like Solana.

Final Thoughts
Looking at Ethereum’s 40% surge over just three days — it may look like a sudden burst of emotion, but beneath it lies a complex matrix of macroeconomic dynamics, industry-wide interlinkage, and deep technical evolution.

Of course, markets don’t move in straight lines. Will ETH keep going up tomorrow? No one knows for sure. But the trend is clear: ETH isn’t just rising in price — it’s transforming its role. From “Bitcoin’s second fiddle,” it’s becoming the foundation layer of all on-chain applications.