Ethereum Rockets 20% in Single-Day Frenzy—Biggest Leap Since 2021

ETH bulls party like it’s 2021 as the asset notches its sharpest daily gain in four years. Traders scramble while skeptics mutter about ’irrational exuberance’—right before checking their portfolios again.

The surge defies Wall Street’s usual ’crypto winter’ narrative, proving digital assets still pack volatility punches that leave traditional markets yawning. Meanwhile, bankers quietly recalculate their ’blockchain isn’t scalable’ PowerPoints.

Ethereum’s Best Day Since 2021

According to CoinGlass, more than $280 million in short ETH positions were liquidated over the past 24 hours. It’s Ethereum’s best day since 2021, wrote Bankless on May 9; however, the asset has had several similar spurts of action over the past year.

Between May 20 and 22 last year, ETH surged 23% from $3,070 to just below $3,800, and between November 6 and 10, it pumped almost 30% from $2,400 to over $3,100, so these moves are not unusual.

Analysts are starting to turn bullish with longer-term predictions for ETH now that the asset has bounced off the bottom. ‘MMCrypto’ saw a target of $3,700 should the asset return to the top of this wedge pattern.

ETHEREUM TARGET: $3’700 pic.twitter.com/hNJkh4AajX

— MMCrypto (@MMCrypto) May 9, 2025

Web3 growth manager Cas Abbé commented that Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade has been really successful. Hours after the upgrade, ETH annual inflation dropped from 0.7% to -0.5% as issuance turned deflationary again, he observed.

Also, the daily ETH burn has doubled since the Pectra Upgrade, “which is the reason behind ETH’s pump,” he said before adding:

“We all know that ETH has been underperforming this entire cycle, due to a lack of demand and increasing supply. If ETH burn increases, the supply issue will be resolved, and it will eventually attract demand too. It feels like $3K ETH in Q2 is coming.”

Ethereum’s Pectra Upgrade has been really successful.

Hours after the Pectra Upgrade, ETH annual inflation dropped from 0.7% to -0.53%.

In simple terms, ETH has turned deflationary again.

Also, daily ETH burn has doubled since Pectra Upgrade, which is the reason behind ETH’s… pic.twitter.com/5uOJ4uLPMw

— Cas Abbé (@cas_abbe) May 8, 2025

Stablecoin and Tokenization Gold Rush

The stablecoin and tokenization gold rush is going to usher in a huge wave of net new adoption for crypto over the coming years, said ethereum educator Anthony Sassano, who added.

“At the center of it all is Ethereum – the home of stablecoins and tokenized real-world assets.”

Ethereum is the industry standard for real-world asset tokenization. According to RWA.xyz, Ethereum has a 58% market share for tokenized assets with almost $7 billion on-chain, excluding stablecoins.

When stablecoins are included, Ethereum is still the industry leader with a 55% RWA market share, followed by TRON with almost 30%, but this is primarily due to Tether.