The highly anticipated launch of Ethereum 2.0, or Eth2, is scheduled to take place next week. Specifically speaking, Eth2’s proof-of-stake blockchain known as “the beacon chain” has been confirmed to run alongside the Ethereum network starting Dec. 1.
Although some members of the blockchain community remained skeptical about a Dec. 1 launch date for the beacon chain, an impressive 524,288 Ether (ETH) from 16,384 validators has been deposited into the Eth2 contract. As such, there is now assurance from The Ethereum Foundation that Eth2’s beacon chain will indeed go live as expected.
While impressive, it’s important to note that additional deposits went into the Eth2 deposit contract even after the target goal was reached. To put this into perspective, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, sent a recent tweet on Nov. 24 showing the impressive amount of transaction across the Ethereum network over time:
While it’s unknown where these transactions came from, Alex Mashinsky, chief executive officer and founder of Celsius Network — a crypto lending and borrowing platform — told Cointelegraph that Celsius provided 25,000 worth of ETH to ensure that the Eth2 deposit contract had enough funds to launch on time.
According to Mashinsky, the amount of ETH Celsisus deposited was equivalent to $15,125,000 at the time of the transaction. Mashinsky further noted that funds came from the Celsius ‘s pool of community assets, explaining that this will be used to generate an even higher yield for the community once the Eth2 network is officially launched. Currently, Celsius users can earn up to 7.21% Annual Percentage Yield on ETH held in the Celsius wallet. Mashinsky said:
“We already have 230 thousand users on the Celsius network, along with 3.3 billion dollars worth in assets. These users are putting in ETH, allowing the network to earn yield on it in many different ways. The 25,000 ETH contributed to the proof-of-stake Ethereum network will generate another source of yield for our community.”
Mashinsky further shared that the growing Celsius community has been modeled off Ethereum, noting the importance of giving back the Ethereum network:
“We built our CEL token on the Ethereum blockchain and used it to scale and become one of the fastest-growing companies in crypto. We are proud to inaugurate the ETH 2.0 Genesis and contribute the last building block with 25,000 ETH from the Celsius community and be a helping hand to a company that helped us scale our own project.”
Hopes are high for Eth 2.0, but concerns remain
Although the Eth2 beacon chain is set to launch on Dec. 1, concerns still remain. For example, while scalability issues are expected to be resolved as Ethereum adopts a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm, the security of some Ethereum smart contracts remains questionable. This has especially come to light with the rise of decentralized finance, or DeFi, projects.
As such, a new working group from the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance called “EthTrust Security Levels Working Group” has been focused on creating a set of defined standards to ensure Ethereum smart contracts are safe to use. The working group eventually hopes to develop a digital registry for secure smart contracts to be utilized by enterprises.
Additionally, some remain concerned that benefits will not be seen immediately following the gradual launch of Eth2. As such, the need for layer-two scaling solutions has become apparent.
Concerns aside, Mashinsky expressed excitement for faster scalability from the Eth2 network:
“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.”
