• Ethereum fees declined significantly and hit its lowest point in over a month
• Developers continued to work on the Pectra update, with the testnet expected to launch next week

Ethereum [ETH] has seen a significant surge in price over the past week, with the altcoin even managing to push past the $3,000-level. This has inspired some hope among investors. Despite the positive price movement though, overall interest in the Ethereum ecosystem declined.

Gassed out

Cryptoquant analyst Woominkyu’s analysis of Ethereum gas fees revealed a downward trend since May 2024, reaching its lowest point in recent months. This suggests a relatively quieter period of network activity on the Ethereum blockchain.

The analyst’s chart visualized the average gas fee (Gwei) in blue, while the black line tracked Ethereum’s price. Historically, periods of increased gas fees have often coincided with upward price movements for Ethereum.

New developments underway

Even though interest in Ethereum’s ecosystem seems to be slowing down, new developments on the Ethereum network may help attract users to the network.

Ethereum developers on 11 July discussed advancements for development on the Ethereum network. Progress on the Pectra and PeerDAS testnets were the primary focus. Developers expressed confidence in launching Pectra the following week, while addressing remaining issues on PeerDAS. For context, PeerDAS stands for Peer Data Availability Sampling. It’s essentially a method being explored to improve the scalability of the Ethereum network.

Additionally, preparations for the Pectra testnet launch are now underway. Various client combinations are being tested to ensure a smooth transition. Efforts to integrate the EthereumJS client into the Pectra testnet are progressing too.

Alongside testnet development, research is also being done into potential vulnerabilities in Ethereum’s client software. A tool designed to identify these issues is being developed and refined with the goal of enhancing network security.

Read Ethereum’s [ETH] Price Prediction 2024-2025

Overall, the Pectra upgrade is primarily focused on adjusting the blob gas limit. Blobs are essentially data chunks that are processed off-chain to improve Ethereum’s scalability.

By modifying the blob gas limit, the Pectra upgrade aims to optimize the efficiency of data processing and potentially enhance the overall performance of the network.

How is ETH doing?

At press time, ETH was trading at $3,139.96 following a 2.23% hike in the last 24 hours.

Here, it’s worth pointing out that the volume with which ETH was trading declined by 26.55% over the same period too.