Ethereum flips Alibaba and Coca-Cola in market cap, dumps underperformer tag with 40% rally

Ethereum has registered a 42% rally in just five days, surpassing the market capitalizations of global giants Coca-Cola and Alibaba. The surge followed the successful implementation of Ethereum’s highly anticipated Pectra upgrade on its mainnet on May 7.

According to market data from 8marketcap, Ether reached a market capitalization of over $308 billion as of Sunday, pushing it ahead of Coca-Cola, valued at $303.5 billion, and Alibaba, which stood at $303.7 billion.

The crypto sits at the 39th position in the global market cap tallies, trailing behind Bank of America by approximately $7 billion.

At the time of publication, ETH was trading at around $2,550, 58% higher than its 30-day lows.

Pectra upgrade precedes price rally

Ethereum’s price rally came almost immediately after the Pectra upgrade, which went live on Wednesday. Developers have coined the network update as “Ethereum’s most ambitious” since The Merge in 2022, which transitioned the network from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake.

Pectra has added a number of technology improvements that make the experience better for users and give validators flexibility and scalability. Some of the changes are that account abstraction is now supported, validator staking limits have been raised, and data handling has been improved for layer-2 scaling.

Externally owned accounts can now function like smart contracts, allowing users to pay gas fees using tokens other than ETH. Validator staking limits were expanded from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH to simplify node operations for institutional and large-scale stakers. 

The network also increased the number of data blobs per block, an adjustment that significantly benefits layer-2 networks by improving data throughput and efficiency.

In the time leading up to the upgrade, ETH’s price charts reveal that holders were unhappy. In early May, it was $1,786, and by mid-May, it had risen to $2,550, a 42% increase. After reaching $2,727 in February, the cryptocurrency fell 33.3% to $1,818 in the three months that followed.

Ethereum price market data

Regardless of the upswing, analysts say that Ethereum will test the $2,624.480% Fibonacci level, which has previously served as the rally’s ceiling. If the current level of resistance can be overcome, there will be opportunities to trade towards higher price targets of $2,771 and $2,896.

Coinglass estimates that a short squeeze would prompt a quick increase in price if Ethereum were to rise another 3% to above $2,586. This amount is equivalent to around $786 million in short holdings. On the flip side, almost $715 million in long holdings might be liquidated if prices fall below $2,438.

Approximately 67 million ETH would be profitable if Ethereum reaches $2,600, according to data from IntoTheBlock. At this price point, about 6.61 million Ethereum holders are purchasing the cryptocurrency on average.

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