Less than 150k ETH required for Phase0 genesis

The Ethereum community has been curiously waiting for the launch of Ethereum 2.0 for the last two years. Reaching the required conditions Acquiring a fixed number of validators for the deposit contract is the initial step to the launch phase0 of Eth2.0. For the genesis to take place at the proposed time on December 1, the deposit contract must reach 524,288 ETH by November 24. As soon as the required number is reached, the long-awaited beacon chain will be launched with Phase 0 (PoS Consensus) followed by Sharding, and eventually Proof-of-Work (PoW) will get replaced by Proof-of-Stake (PoS) with other developments.

For the genesis, 16,384 validators are required to stake at least 524,288 Ether to unlock the first stage. As of now 378,272 ETH has been staked which constitutes about 70% of the requirement.

Deposit contract (network status)

At present, the Phase 0 genesis seems a little far from reality to be triggered on the set date with stated number of ETH required. A fixed amount of 32 ETH is required for staking, with an expected annualized yield between 5% and 20%.

When reached 50%, Ethereum’s co-founder Vitalik Buterin tweeted the current status of the eth2 contract deposit.

So far 387,904ETH worth $228,1863,360 has been delegated.

Eth2 genesis needs less than 150k ETH in less than 24 hrs. to be deployed on Dec 1. Considering the deposit required, it seems to be an ambitious target but not impossible to be achieved. Any stakeholder who is interested in staking needs 32 ETH (nearly worth $18000) to be sent to the deposit contract. This creates a problem for retail investors holding less than 32 ETH to engage. For validators, joining the deposit contract would mean a minimum two-year commitment to eth2. Validators will have to wait until phase 2 to be able to withdraw to a specific shard. Both Stakers and Validators face a huge liquidity risk when they have staked their ETH possessions. Stakers may expect an annualized yield between 5% and 20% while validators will be looking for rewards.

What if minimum validator count is not met? When will be the next launch date?

Danny Ryan, Eth2 researcher who is currently leading the Eth2 Phase ) launch talked about the genesis. While being skeptical, he said,

“Eth2 genesis ‘may’ come on December 1 depending upon the amount of eth going to the deposit contract. The threshold has to be met seven days before the actual day.”

Responding to a similar question during Phase 0 AMA session organized by the EF research team, Danny mentioned that, “the team has Plan B which is to change the minimum genesis active validator count to whatever validator number will be present on November 24. This will allow eth2 to start on December 1 without pushing the dates ahead. Rewards are assured for the early adopters and the ETH validating is expected to sky-high over time.” However, in the present situation, the community seems divided on extending the dates for genesis. Some feel changing the dates would mean depositing into a contract without knowing when it will launch is too abstract for many potential validators. Any delay in the genesis, if at all happens would only be because of security issues. In case the required targets are unable to meet before time, genesis will trigger seven days after the threshold is met.

The Ethereum 2.0 (phase 0) testnets

Recently the Ethereum Foundation team launched the new public Pyrmont testnet to replace the Medalla testnet for Eth2.0. After the launch, Pyrmont testnet suffered multiple forks due to performance issues across its clients. The issue was addressed immediately after being reported. A fork-choice issue causing Nimbus to get stuck on a particular slot has been resolved along with adding new RPC APIs for inspecting the internal state of the Eth1 monitor. Earlier the developers of Ethereum 2.0 phase 0 successfully launched testnet ‘Zinken’ on October 12th after the recent Spadina testnet did not go smoothly enough.

Vitalik contributed 3200 ETH on Beacon chain staking

Vitalik was in fact one of those first stakeholders to validate Eth2.0 blockchain. He sent 3,200 ETH, worth $1.5 million to the deposit contract. This was around 1% of his ETH holdings. This has increased the community's confidence in Buterin’s Eth2.0 vision and seeing it converted into reality.

Dubai investor added 20k ETH to stake

Proof-of-Stake concept has attracted many people because of its high-returns. Long-time Bitcoin believer and Dubai-based boutique IBC group chairman, Khurram Shroff showed his support for Ethereum 2.0 launch and announced staking 20,000 ETH worth $10 million in the upcoming Eth2.0 launch. The investment is made in partnership with Canada based CanETH and BlockBanc.

Serenity - Ethereum 2.0

Serenity also known as Ethereum2.0 is a vision to upgrade Ethereum's consensus mechanism from PoW to PoS. Phase 0 will see no change in the PoW consensus but a separate beacon chain or PoS chain will start building parallel to serve as the core of the upgraded network.

Ethereum2.0 is an ambitious project of Ethereum Foundation for over two years now. During EthGlobal summit, Co-founder Vitalik Buterin in conversation with renowned American economist Tyler Cowin discussed upon the future of Ethereum 2.0. On being asked about the certainty of Ethereum in the next two years, Vitalik replied in three words- Continued, steady growth and technical progress. The 2.0 update will eventually transform the Ethereum network into a PoS consensus network from the already existing PoW consensus. Moving to Eth2.0 upgrade is visualized as the first step to both eliminate Ethash and to upgrade Ethereum's capacity. Eventually, Eth1 and Eth2 will merge to become one single entity of the Ethereum ecosystem.

Although the deposit contract is just 30% away from reaching its target, the whole community is eagerly waiting for the genesis. All eyes on the next 24 hours!

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