14 Jan 2022 Josphat Kariuki
TVL On Ethereum 2.0 Surpassed $30 Billion
The past year saw numerous massive Ethereum network overhauls, preparing the network for what seems to be an inevitable transition to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus algorithm. The migration, called ETH 2.0, has no clear deadline, but the Ethereum community awaits the update with interest since it would eliminate most of the bottlenecks, which increase gas fees.
It turns out the amount of ETH staked on the ETH 2.0 chain has hit yet another milestone, locking in over $30 billion worth of Ethereum ahead of the merge.
In order to become a node validator, users had to lock in at least 32 ETH in the ETH 2.0 deposit contract. However, users have been able to stake less by using staking pools usually provided by cryptocurrency exchanges if they do not have 32 ETH.
Currently, the ETH 2.0 deposit contract has over 9 million ETH, which is a 50% increase since July 2021, when the Ethereum community celebrated the milestone of 6.6 million ETH staked on the network.
As the number of staked ETH continues on its upwards trajectory, so does the number of validator nodes also increase and have surpassed 222,000.
The number of ETH staked and the increase in validator nodes shows that the Ethereum community is preparing for the move to Ethereum 2.0, which would see the network go from the energy-intensive and computationally expensive Proof-of-Work mechanism to the Proof-of-Stake mechanism.
The result of the migration would be significantly reduced energy consumption, as well as reduce in the computational power required to confirm transactions, making it a more eco-friendly and efficient network.
However, ETH 2.0 had suffered major setbacks and delays, but after the EIP-1559 network update, the roadmap for the transition is set. One of the new advancements is the Kintsugi testnet, launched by Ethereum developers to test the behavior of the new network. Also, the EIP-4345, or Arrow Glacier, pushed the difficulty bomb for June 2022.
Pricewise, the second-largest crypto to date started 2022 with a set of price increases and decreases, with the most notable dip occurring between January 4 and January 10, when Ethereum lost almost $1,000 and fell close to $3,000 per ETH. The altcoin leader then bounced, reaching $3,390, but slipped to a current level of $3,219 per ETH.
Source: CryptoBrowser
However, the dip is not all about Ethereum, as the same price pattern can be observed across all cryptocurrencies, with almost all cryptos recording negative price movements in the past 24 hours.
Dogecoin (DOGE) is among the very few daily gainers, but the overall weekly trend remains bullish.
Ethereum eth Ethereum news cryptocurrency news crypto news Crypto Price Ethereum Price Ethereum 2.0 Proof-of-Stake TVL