Is $3,000 Within Reach for Ethereum in June?

Key Points

Investors love a round number, and the $3,000 mark is looming just above Ethereum 's (CRYPTO: ETH) current price near $2,540. Yet the real story is less about the coin's short-term price movement and more about whether May's big upgrade called Pectra has finally begun to solve Ethereum's perennial problems of high gas fees and sluggish throughput. If that fix sticks and institutions keep pouring fresh dollars into the blockchain, the token's next leg higher could have staying power and start to restore some real and enduring confidence among investors.

In short, the question is whether a cheaper, faster Ethereum can reclaim relevance just as countries are debating where to stockpile their digital assets. Let's map out why the next few months could drop a few clues about the answer to that inquiry.

Fees are lower, but they still matter

The May 7 Pectra upgrade bundles several long-awaited improvements, from account abstraction to a doubling of blob capacity for Layer-2 data. These two technical upgrades make Ethereum more accessible and efficient, building on a handful of prior additions and tweaks.

Account abstraction allows developers to create custom wallets and smart contract wallets that are easier to use, while the doubled blob capacity lets Layer-2 (L2) chains built on top of Ethereum to post data to the main Ethereum chain more cheaply and efficiently, which reduces congestion and fees across the board. This is important because it reduces friction for users and institutions alike, encouraging more transactions on the main chain and strengthening the case for using Ethereum as a foundational layer for decentralized applications.

Is $3,000 Within Reach for Ethereum in June?

The immediate promise implied by Pectra was leaner gas fees for everyday actions such as swaps, an issue that the chain's developers have been working on for years. Early evidence suggests meaningful progress, though not the nearly no-fee nirvana that some aspired for.

Take a look at this table:

Metric

Late-March 2025 (pre-Pectra)

June 9, 2025 (post-Pectra)

Average transaction fee

$0.28 (a historical low)

$0.28

Average swap fee

$4.96

$4.27

Block time

Approximately 12 seconds

Approximately 12 seconds

Data source:

As you can see, Pectra did not crash swap costs or juice transaction speeds overnight. Instead, it appears to have stabilized them at rock-bottom levels even as network activity rebounded. In other words, the chain finally has some traffic headroom before fees rise, which is a bullish development, to say the least.

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