Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH likely to see increased demand as Pectra upgrade is set for March launch

Ethereum price today: $3,420

• Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade is set to roll out in March 2025, a year after the Dencun upgrade went live.
• Pectra features new upgrades, which include improving the wallet experience, boosting security and increasing the maximum staking limit.
• Ethereum risks facing rejection near a key trendline resistance amid its developing inverted Head-and-Shoulders pattern.

Ethereum (ETH) traded above $3,400 on Friday following core developers' decision to roll out the Pectra upgrade in March. Meanwhile, ETH is looking to overcome the resistance near a key descending trendline that extends from mid-December.

Ethereum to undergo Pectra upgrade in March

Ethereum developers have scheduled the upcoming Pectra upgrade to launch in March 2025 upon the successful upgrades in test networks or testnets.

At a call on Thursday, core developers agreed to ship the new upgrades on Ethereum's Sepolia and Holesky testnets. If the updates go well without any hiccups, developers will extend Pectra to the manner in March — just one year apart from the Dencun upgrade.

The Pectra upgrade features several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP), including EIP-7702, which will kick-start "account abstraction" to improve the user experience in wallets by allowing batch transactions and one-time gas fees, account recovery options, and sponsored transactions.

Another key upgrade is EIP-2537, which aims to tweak how zero-knowledge cryptography works on Ethereum to unlock improved privacy, security and scalability.

Validators also look forward to EIP-7002 and EIP-7251, which will allow flexible staking withdrawals and increase the maximum staking balance from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, with the former as the minimum. This will reduce the validator set size and improve the network health.

Pectra was initially set to introduce about 20 EIPs to the Ethereum network, but core developers decided to split the upgrade in September to reduce the potential risks of shipping all at once. The second phase, code-named Fusaka, will be next in line after Pectra goes live.

If developers successfully complete the Pectra upgrade, it could attract new users into the Ethereum ecosystem and, in turn, increase ETH's demand.

Read the Galaxy Digital report to learn more about Ethereum's upcoming upgrades.

Meanwhile, Ethereum ETFs posted net inflows of $166.6 million on Thursday, per Coinglass data.

Ethereum Price Forecast: ETH faces key trendline resistance amid developing inverted H&S pattern

Ethereum is up 2%, sparking over $33 million in liquidations in the past 24 hours. The total amount of long and short liquidations is $17.43 million and $16 million.

ETH is attempting to form the right shoulder of an inverted Head-and-Shoulders pattern that has been developing since early 2024.

ETH/USDT weekly chart

On the upside, ETH risks seeing a rejection near the resistance of a descending trendline that extends from December. A breakout above the descending trendline resistance could send ETH toward the resistance level near $4,093, which has held for nearly ten months. The top altcoin has consistently seen increased selling pressure whenever it attempts to cross this level.

If Ethereum pulls a sustained high volume breakout above the $4,093 resistance and holds it as a support level, ETH could rally toward $6,000. However, ETH's all-time high price of $4,868 could stand as a critical resistance to prevent such a move.

On the downside, ETH must maintain the support level near $2,817, as a move below will invalidate the bullish thesis.

The Relative Strength Index (RSI) and Stochastic Oscillator (Stoch) are above their neutral levels, indicating dominant bullish momentum.