Ethereum Development Progresses: 2.0 Contract Now Holds Over 3M ETH

As the deployment of Ethereum 2.0 continues to develop, its deposit contract now holds over 3M ETH which will contribute to the security of the ecosystem.
These deposits are worth over $5.4 billion for a contract that was launched just 4 months ago and secured the amount required by the Beacon Chain for its launch in just 3 weeks, allowing it to be released in December.
Ethereum 2.0’s beacon chain will be an integral part of the new platform by allowing it to remain connected to the current mainnet, ensuring migration between the two versions is possible as well as allowing ETH holders to stake their funds.
This staking feature will also allow the blockchain network to transition to a Proof of Stake (PoS) model, which will allow nodes with a minimum of 32 staked ETH to earn the rights to validate transactions and earn rewards, a more efficient way than the current Proof of Work (PoW) algorithm.
Ethereum 2.0 Development is Powered By its Community
The development of Ethereum’s upgrade continues as the team successfully completed an R&D workshop around the future beacon chain upgrades and selected new grantees for the latest staking community grants round.
The R&D Worksop was ghosted by the Ethereum Foundation’s research team to allow devs and researchers to discuss the eth1+eth2 merge and share in the upgrade, which also shared some of the plans with presentations by Vitalik Buterin, Dankrad Feist, Mikhail Terekhov, and Guillaume Ballet.
The foundation also allocated over $1M to 25 grantees over 4 different categories. A total of $391.8 k was granted to community/education programs, $200k to new tooling, $180k for data analysis/visualization efforts, and $268.6k invested in research.
These grants will allow the community to actively take part in the development of Ethereum 2.0, as well as easing the transition and adoption by users by providing information to interested parties.
While the release of the ETH 2.0 complete release is still unknown, the development of the new version has been a matter of discussion for crypto enthusiasts and experts alike as the future of the network will depend on this upgrade.
Fee Market Changes and the Future of Ethereum
Not only has Ethereum experienced issues when it comes to scalability over the last year, but it also has seen its gas prices increase rapidly as the network gets saturated and transactions take longer to process.
This problem was partially caused by the DeFi booming and partly because of the network’s infrastructure.
These gas prices have resulted in many investors and dApps looking for alternatives in other blockchains or using L2 solutions, causing trust in the future of the network to be in jeopardy.
Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum Founder and current member of the development team, was one of the proponents of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal 1559 (EIP 1559). Titled “Fee market change for ETH 1.0 chain”, it was created back in April of 2019 to offer a solution to the increasing gas prices.
The proposal has been one of the highest anticipated upgrades to the network, and while it can be deployed independently of the eth2 upgrade, it is only clear that it will be seen on the mainnet in 2021.
This change will result in a majority of the ETH used in transaction fees being burned, as well as establish a fixed-per-block network fee that will dynamically adapt to the level of congestion experienced by the network.
This will not only result in lower gas fees that will allow dApps and investors who depend on low-value transactions to generate gains, but it will also give the cryptocurrency a deflationary trait that will allow its value to increase.
With blockchain networks like Polkadot and Cardano seeing increasing interest from developers and investors, Ethereum’s capacity to offer competitive fees and features will be essential in deciding the future of the network in an increasingly competitive ecosystem.
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