Ethereum’s Pectra upgrade went live on May 7, and some call it one of the most significant changes to the network since The Merge. Pectra combines two updates (Prague and Electra) and introduces improvements to staking, user experience, and Layer-2 efficiency — all aimed at making Ethereum faster, more accessible, and ready for the next growth phase.
We sat down with Alexander Loktev, CRO at P2P.org, to talk about the first impressions and discuss what Pectra could mean for the future of the Ethereum ecosystem and Ether price.
Cryptonews: Ethereum has just activated the long-awaited Pectra upgrade. What are your initial impressions from the rollout?
Alexander Loktev: The rollout has been incredibly smooth, and everything is going amazingly well! The Ethereum team did an outstanding job with this upgrade. We’re really busy, which was to be expected – our team is working around the clock helping users merge their validators and optimize their setups for the new cap and auto-compounding features.
What’s most exciting is seeing the immediate benefits for ETH users. The transition was virtually seamless from the end-user perspective, which speaks volumes about the preparation and testing that went into this upgrade. We are super super happy about it! The level of interest we’re seeing confirms what we’ve believed all along – that these improvements to validator economics were exactly what the ecosystem needed.
CN: Ethereum has lost market share to faster-moving competitors. Some have even suggested the platform is going through an “identity crisis.” Do you think the Pectra upgrade could help shift that narrative?
AL: That “identity crisis” narrative misses the forest for the trees. Ethereum isn’t trying to be the fastest gun in the West – it’s building financial infrastructure for decades to come.
Pectra reinforces what makes Ethereum special: methodical, security-first evolution that keeps user assets safe while incrementally improving the economic model. The fact that we can now dramatically reduce validator operational costs and slash risks while improving yields shows Ethereum’s focus on sustainable economics.
Are the competitors gaining market share? They’re making different tradeoffs. Some sacrifice decentralization, others security.
What I find telling is how many of these competing L1s still anchor their security to Ethereum in various ways. That speaks volumes about the industry’s actual confidence in Ethereum’s foundation.
Pectra won’t grab headlines like “one million TPS!” but it solves real economic inefficiencies that matter for institutional and individual stakers alike. That kind of substance over flash is exactly why Ethereum remains the backbone of serious crypto infrastructure.
CN: ETH declined in price starting in December, raising concerns about its long-term trajectory. Now that the upgrade is live, what’s your Ethereum price prediction?
I’ve been in this market long enough to know price predictions make you look smart until they don’t. What I can confidently say are the economic factors Pectra introduces that should create upward pressure over time.
First, auto-compounding creates a new incentive to stake rather than trade ETH. This reduces available supply on exchanges.
Second, the dramatically lower slashing penalties will bring in more conservative capital that previously viewed staking as too risky.
Third, the validator consolidation efficiencies will improve staking yields, making ETH more competitive against other yield-bearing assets.
What’s interesting is how these factors strengthen each other. Higher yields attract more staking, which reduces circulating supply, which tends to increase price, which makes staking more attractive in fiat terms.
I can’t give you a number, but I’m extremely bullish on ETH’s long-term trajectory because Pectra directly improves its underlying tokenomics in ways that matter to serious investors.
CN: Some experts on X have raised security concerns after the upgrade. Do you see any credible risks?
AL: I’ve read those concerns, including the X thread you mentioned. While I respect healthy skepticism around any major upgrade, most of these concerns show a misunderstanding of how slashing actually works.
The core security model of Ethereum remains unchanged. What’s changed is that small, accidental violations now face proportionally smaller penalties, while coordinated attacks still result in massive slashing through the correlation penalty mechanism. If a significant portion of validators (approaching 1/3) are slashed simultaneously, they can still lose their entire stake.
This is a thoughtful rebalancing, not a wholesale reduction in security. The previous model was unnecessarily punitive toward isolated technical failures, which actually discouraged staking participation.
At P2P.org, we’ve looked deeply at these security claims, since we’re responsible for securing billions in customer assets. Our conclusion is that Pectra actually improves Ethereum’s security by encouraging broader staking participation while maintaining strong disincentives against coordinated attacks.
The proof is in the numbers: slashing remains rare, affecting less than 0.1% of validators historically, and nearly all cases were technical errors, not attacks. Making honest operators feel safer while maintaining strong penalties against attackers is good security design.
CN: Looking ahead, what kind of upgrade would you like, or expect, to see next from Ethereum?
I’m particularly excited about improvements to the withdrawal experience. The current system works well, but there’s always room to make it more user-friendly and efficient.
We’re also looking forward to continued progress on scaling solutions. The ecosystem of Layer 2 solutions is already strong, but further integration and improvements to cross-layer communication will unlock even more potential for developers and users.
Another area that would benefit from continued refinement is validator performance incentives. Pectra has already made huge strides here, but further optimizations could help ensure the most efficient and reliable validators are properly rewarded for their contributions to network security.
I also expect continued improvements to the MEV landscape, making block production more efficient and rewards more predictable for validators.
What impresses me most about Ethereum’s development approach is its consistency and reliability. Each upgrade builds on previous foundations in thoughtful ways, always keeping the long-term vision in focus while delivering concrete improvements to users today. That methodical approach might not generate the most headlines, but it’s exactly what you want in critical financial infrastructure.
The post ‘Extremely Bullish on ETH’: First Take on the Ethereum Pectra Upgrade | Interview appeared first on Cryptonews.
