Ethereum is back in the news after a rather disappointing Q3 and early Q4 of the 2020 with the news of its first major Ethereum 2.0 upgrade. As part of a new deposit contract update to the network, users are now required to deposit 32 ETH for staking purposes. While a clear date was previously unclear regarding the next big update, analytics firm Glassnode expects that it will be set be ready for a launch as early as early next month with Dec. 1 being touted as a possible release date.
Ethereum’s long awaited move to a more sustainable PoS system has been on the cards for some time but delays have been holding it back for now. The latest update is an example of that as it allows staking features as part of the new update but actual staking returns won’t be available for quite a while as it is still in the works for now. The next big update is called the beacon chain genesis and it will start locking ETH funds in place for staking purposes. However, for that to occur, more than 16,384 deposits of 32 ETH are required. According to the current price index of the cryptocurrency that is a whopping $200 million of crypto locked in place that is needed for the next big update to occur. Ethereum developers and predictors are confident that it can happen before Dec. 1 so that the next step of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade can carry on without a hitch.
Currently the number of ETH addressing holding more than 32 ETH hit an all-time high record of 126852. This is way more than the previous record of 123000 wallets recorded earlier. This means that more than 23% of the total number of ETH wallet holders now have more than 32 ETH in their ownership. However, this doesn’t mean that all of these users or entities are ready to stake their coins. It will still need a community effort to help freeze these assets in place so that the next phase of the upgrade can be successfully carried out.
Other records broken by the network include wallets with lower and higher number of ETH deposits. Wallets holding 0.1, 10 or 100 Ether has also risen to post record highs of 3,616,246 addresses, 293,183 addresses and 52,943 addresses respectively. This shows that the system is witnessing an increase in both small, medium and large scale holdings of the cryptocurrency which is always good.
The Ethereum 2.0 upgrade is in the middle of its execution but there is a lot of uncertainty in the air around the development. There is no concrete roadmap that the project is following. Rather, a loose framework is in place for most of the time. If the network can successfully scale and implemented the spirit of the new update, the network will become the standard-setter in the industry as it continues to look for more sustainable alternatives with better scaling abilities.
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