The official launch of Ethereum Beacon Chain Genesis (ETH 2.0) will go ahead on December 1, 2020 at 12 UTC.
This date was confirmed after it hit its deposit contract threshold of 524,288 Ether about nine hours before the deadline. At this time, it has amassed deposits from 16,384 validators since kickoff on November 4.
Despite an initial scare due to low staking participation, deposit contracts increased over the last few days, with as much as 200,000 ETH sent in a single day.
With few hours to its launch, Eth2 continues to attract staking deposits and has now reached a milestone of over $500 million worth of ETH locked – about 852,960 ETH and 62% more than the required number for tomorrow’s event.
Expressing satisfaction at the massive participation, Justin Drake – Eth2 researcher remarked:
“It is a fantastic display of confidence by the Ethereum community. I’m proud thousands of Ethereans felt compelled to lock their funds for many months to secure Eth2.”
Also commenting, Afri Schoeden – pioneer of Eth2 multi-client testnets noted: “This is a huge milestone in 80 years of computer science and proves confidence in the progress Ethereum and blockchain technology has made in the decade to date. I’m looking forward to the next ten years.”
Interestingly, the deposits are to be locked and can only be withdrawn when phase 1.5 of Eth2 goes live in 2022.
On activation of the beacon chain, Eth2 transition process begins right until its complete upgrade at phase 4. While it is believed that a full upgrade will be achieved by 2022, challenges during the projects development could extend it further; as about 10x the current amount staked would be required for robust security of the platform.
