It’s the most wonderful time of the year for thousands of developers: Ethereum 2.0 is just around the corner. After raising 524,288 in ETH worth over US$300 million from over 16,300 participants, the network is ready for the biggest update in its history. Phase 0 will begin with the platform’s genesis block deploying on the Beacon Chain as early as on December 1 at 12:00 UTC.
The Beacon Chain shall ensure a smooth transition and commence the migration to ETH 2.0. The staking threshold required to set the chain up has been met. Major DeFi lender Celsius Network pumped in US$15 million to make it happen, and provided as much as 25,000 ETH.
“The 25,000 ETH contributed to the proof-of-stake Ethereum network will generate another source of yield for our community,” Alex Mashinsky, Celsius Network’s CEO and founder, told CoinTelegraph. “Ethereum 2.0 will scale everything 100 times faster than now. The ability to move Ethereum from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake network will open a world of new ideas and opportunities that couldn’t be achieved before due to scalability issues.”
Why is it so important? Essentially, Ethereum 2.0 will bring a fundamental, long-awaited change to the blockchain network which popularity has grown massively, especially over the last year due to the DeFi frenzy. The new 2.0 era extensively solve the problem of the network’s scalability, and speed. This is achieved by Ethereum’s long discussed switch from protocol PoW (proof-of-work) to PoS (proof-of-stake) which is claimed to drastically improve security and interoperability, in addition to, of course, balancing gas price. In June 2020 Ethereum raised its gas limit up to 25%, however, it didn’t help much, as due to still growing demand the new capacity was used up in a matter of days. Again, the network’s congestion was generally caused by the DeFi projects craze.
How DeFi is changing the game for fintech and blockchain-based finance? Learn more from top-notch Hong Kong Blockchain Week 2020 content:
DeFi talks with Alex Mashinsky, Miko Matsumura, Urszula McCormack and Angie Lau
DeFi vs CeFi hosted by Hong Kong’s tech powerhouse Cyberport
Image credit: Ethereum Foundation / William Tempest