Ethereum Prepares for March 2025 Mainnet with Pectra Devnet5 Rollout—Can This Drive ETH to $5,000?

• Ethereum’s Pectra Devnet5 has officially gone live, with the mainnet launch currently expected to take place in March 2025.
• During the January 16 Execution Layer Meeting 203, led by Tim Beiko of the Ethereum Foundation, developers reviewed the progress of the Pectra upgrade.

Ethereum developers recently held the 203rd All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) call, during which they finalized plans for the Pectra upgrade, a major milestone in Ethereum’s development roadmap. Following months of deliberations, the developers agreed to launch the upgrade between early to mid-March 2025. In addition, the team revealed that Pectra Devnet5, a dedicated environment for developers to test the Pectra upgrade, is now live.

As we reported, The Pectra upgrade was initially deployed on the Mekong testnet in November 2024 as a trial run to verify its functionality and compatibility. With the mainnet launch now approaching, developers are navigating several critical milestones. 

Christine Kim, an executive at Galaxy Research, shared the summary of the milestones on an X post. By February 3, 2025, they aim to finalize the client releases necessary for the upgrade. The upcoming fork is set to be implemented on the Sepolia testnet on February 12, followed by the Holesky testnet on February 19, just one week later. These milestones are essential for the upgrade’s progress, but developers have acknowledged the potential for delays if significant bugs or compatibility issues arise during the public test net phases.

For context, the Pectra upgrade is a key component of Ethereum’s ongoing Surge phase, which aims to address the network’s scalability challenges. By combining features from the Prague and Electra updates, the upgrade is designed to enhance Ethereum’s scalability, performance, and competitiveness. 

With the upgrade,  the staking cap has been increased to 2048 ETH per node, enabling validators to play a more substantial role in securing and operating the network. Penalties for validator misbehavior have been reduced, encouraging broader participation, while auto-compounding rewards will allow validators to maximize their earnings more efficiently. 

Can Ethereum Reach $5,000 in 2025?

Ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, achieved its all-time high of $4,878.26 on November 10, 2021, marking the peak of its last major bull run. However, since that time, the price has fallen by approximately 29.73% to its current price of $3406. Despite the current dip, Ethereum’s journey remains full of potential, with the possibility of surpassing its previous all-time high and even reaching $5,000 in 2025.

One of the major turning points for Ethereum was the transition to the proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism in 2022, replacing the proof-of-work (PoW) system. This shift, known as The Merge, was a monumental upgrade for the network. While Ethereum’s price dropped by more than 12% immediately following the transition, the long-term benefits were significant. The switch reduced Ethereum’s energy consumption by over 99.9%. At the time of The Merge, analysts had projected that Ethereum could reach $12,972.69 by the end of 2022,

Looking ahead, Ethereum is expected to enter a bullish cycle driven by regulatory clarity and the Pectra upgrade. In particular, the inauguration of a pro-crypto president, Donald Trump, on January 20, 2025, could foster a more crypto-friendly regulatory environment, providing the necessary framework for Ethereum and other digital assets to thrive.