Solana Surpasses Expectations, Ethereum Struggles
The market has spoken. In just one week, the price of SOL has risen by over 10%, while ETH has declined by a similar percentage. As a result, the SOL/ETH ratio has skyrocketed to 0.081 on Binance, compared to 0.058 at the beginning of the year, marking a nearly 40% increase that reflects the growing confidence of investors in the Solana ecosystem.
This divergence is not only observed in comparison to Solana. The ETH/BTC ratio is also plummeting, having decreased by 47% over the past six months, reaching its lowest level since January 2020 at just 0.019. This significant drop calls into question Ethereum’s dominant position in the smart contract market.
The Shadow of the Pectra Update
Scheduled for May 7th, the Pectra hard fork represents a strategic turning point for Ethereum. This update is expected to incorporate major technical improvements such as account abstraction, an increase in the maximum number of blobs for rollups, and an elevation of the staking cap, among other enhancements. It is the biggest change since the deployment of the ‘Dencun’ upgrade in March 2024.
However, this transformation raises concerns about the pace of Ethereum’s network development. Ethereum is often criticized for its slow implementation of changes in comparison to more agile blockchains like Solana or Avalanche. It is in this context that Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, recently addressed the issue on X (formerly Twitter).
Vitalik Promises a Faster Pace for Ethereum
In response to the criticism, Vitalik hinted at an acceleration in the frequency of updates after Pectra. ‘I see a strong desire to make hard forks faster after Pectra, with almost no resistance,’ he stated. This is a way to address the impatience within the network and also signifies a turning point in Ethereum’s governance.
Vitalik also mentioned ‘Glamsterdam,’ the next major milestone in the roadmap, which will follow the ‘Fusaka’ and ‘Pectra’ updates. According to him, there is a clear consensus that the focus will be on increasing gas limits to support the scalability of the network. And if the necessary features are ready earlier, ‘Glamsterdam’ could arrive sooner than expected.
