According to co-founder Vitalik Buterin, more than 1% of Ethereum circulating supply is now locked up on the project’s new beacon chain. He added that the ETH is doing better than his expectations.
ETH 2.0 deposit contract was deployed last month, and the progress was quite sluggish. They first saw 50,000 ETH in the deposit contract despite great interest in the protocol. It finally attained its target due to a recent; the blockchain launched on Dec 1st. Etherium 2.0 stake consensus mechanism allows traders to lock up their ETH to acquire variable annual returns.
The effective blockchain move to a proof of stake mechanism design has a grip on more than 1.15 million ETH from 3,215 depositors as of Monday. The collective value is beyond $683 million. Beaconscan says that currently, there are just under 35,000 validators.
Ethereum Aiming Higher
Currently ranked second by market capitalization, Ethereum is host to the largest ecosystem of blockchain programs. Ethereum intends to improve by introducing waves of ultra-modern enterprise and independent applications.The shift would result in a more innovative, faster network, and simple to use—arriving when the sentiment around cryptocurrencies is turning positive, and the community expects larger institutional interest.
There is under seven million ETH locked across different DeFi protocols, covering about 6% of the total supply as per DeFi Pulse’s report. Presently, staking is manual but expected that soon, centralized exchanges will set up delegated staking services. This move will allow holders to stake less than the 32 ETH required to become a validator.
Beacon Chain is a staking vehicle for users to invest in the future of the network. All transactions, smart contract operations, and decentralized applications will work on the original ETH 1.0 chain until the merger of the two chains. Prompt stakes will acquire the highest rewards, which will diminish over time with more ETH staking.
What is the Future for the Blockchain?
ETH prices pulled back below $600, returning to the $595 level at press time. The prices further dropped by Friday to about $560 but saw recovery over the weekend. ETH seems to form a consolidation channel in the $590 range but still can go higher.
For now, Ethereum is eyeing its next phases, which include Phase 0, Phase 0.5 — Light client, Phase 1 — Data sharding, Phase 1.5 — Merger, and finally, Phase 2 — Enshrined VM.