Ether-Bitcoin ’Squeeze’ Signals Storm Ahead as Ethereum Spectra Upgrade Looms

The crypto market’s calm is a mirage—ETH/BTC volatility is coiled like a spring. With Ethereum’s Spectra upgrade barreling toward mainnet, traders are bracing for turbulence.

Blood in the water? Institutional sharks are circling the tightest ETH-BTC correlation in months. Meanwhile, retail ’degens’ keep stacking leverage like Jenga blocks—what could go wrong?

Spectra’s promised scalability fixes might actually deliver this time (or crash Devnet again). Either way, the ETH/BTC pair’s 30-day volatility just flatlined at historic lows. That’s not stability—it’s a detonation delay.

Bonus cynicism: Wall Street’s suddenly ’bullish on blockchain’ again? Must be quarter-end bonus season.

The volatility bullish signal comes as Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade, which aims to improve the blockchain’s scalability and validator operations and may sput market activity.

The impending upgrade, due May 7, greatly increases the maximum ETH a validator can stake, from 32 ETH up to 2,048 ETH. It also raises the number of "blob" data units per block from 3 to 6, allowing for a maximum of 9. Additionally, the upgrade will start the transition to the EVM Object Format (EOF), a new structure designed to make smart contracts more efficient.

"Layer-2 networks stand to benefit the most. By doubling blob capacity and making call data more expensive, Pectra solidifies blobs as the standard for rollup data posting. This reinforces Ethereum’s role as a data availability layer and strengthens its rollup-centric scaling strategy," analytics firm Nansen said in a report shared with CoinDesk.

"DeFi will also see a lift," the firm noted, saying, NFTs and blockchain games may benefit from the broader improvements.