• Ethereum shows mild gains but faces technical fragility around $1,750 support.
• Analysts warn of a potential drop to $1,500 if the critical level breaks.
• New Pectra upgrade sparks both innovation and immediate wallet safety concerns.

Ethereum is currently trading at $1,824.4, with a 1.13% increase over the last 24 hours, with a massive trading volume of $50.13 billion, a rise of 293%. ETH has increased modestly by 1.47% over the last week, which is a sign of short-term strength. 

Market analyst Daan Crypto Trades sees ETH perilously close to a support point of $1,750. Despite bulls being able to keep the price afloat, Daan cautions that “another test might not hold,” with the threat of a “Bart” pattern, a shape normally associated with a sudden jump, brief consolidation, and a rapid reverse, possibly bringing ETH back into the $1,500s. Volume on the graph indicates declining strength of buys, and the ongoing series of lower highs and lower lows indicates that the overall trend is still downhill.

Concurrent with this precarious price equilibrium is the highly anticipated Ethereum Pectra upgrade, implemented on the network today. Although the upgrade is bringing major improvements for making wallets easier to use and for making smart contracts even more flexible, it also invites major new vulnerabilities.

At the center of concern is EIP-3074, a protocol enhancement that permits a single signature from a user to authorize smart contracts to act on their behalf. Community opinions have quickly echoed with alarms being sounded that bad contracts could misuse the new AUTH and AUTHCALL opcodes and utterly drain a user’s balance. A user stressed, “You only need to sign a message to be completely drained!”

In parallel, EIP-7702 now permits temporary full access to an account, raising fears that a single transaction could transfer an entire ETH balance, including tokens and NFTs, to a rogue contract.

In spite of the near-term risk, long-term optimism persists. Ethereum is likely to hit $3,985.62 by the end of the year, possibly even rising to its record of $4,891.70. Market players are expecting that increased adoption and utility enhancements from the Pectra fork outweigh near-term volatility.

However, for the moment, Ethereum is stuck at a technical crossroad, with both risk and opportunity heightened. Buyers are being urged to keep a close eye on $1,750; a failure to sustain it could precipitate a sharper correction, and a determined push ever upward may reactivate the rally momentum.

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