Over 1 million ETH, worth more than $605 million, has been staked in the Eth2 contract
The Ethereum 2.0 or Eth2 staking contract continues to attract deposits, even after the beacon chain was successfully launched last week.
The contract has now accrued more than 1 million ETH (worth over $605 million). There is no closing date for the contract, meaning people can continue to make deposits to earn staking rewards.
Rewards for early stakers are high, at around 20% per annum. They will continue to drop as more validators join the network. Anyone can become a validator by depositing a minimum of 32 ETH through the staking contract. All deposits and rewards, however, can only be withdrawn when Phase 1.5 of Eth2 goes live — sometime in 2022.
With more than enough deposits in the contract, Phase 0 of Eth2 — the beacon chain, was launched on December 1. The launch marked the beginning of the multi-stage transformation of Ethereum into a proof-of-stake blockchain. The new blockchain is said to be more efficient and scalable than the current proof-of-work network.
But it will take years to fully transition into the new network. "We're over half-way there," Justin Drake, Eth2 researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, told The Block in an interview last week. "Phase 0 was extremely difficult, and I'd say, with it, above 50% of the total Eth2 work is done."
