Recently, Ethernet Square 2.0 developer Ben Edgington Square in online virtual Ethernet Summit ( Ethereal Virtual of Summit) , said Ethernet Square 2.0 Staking service will enable early in July this year. As the largest technological transformation in the history of “Big Brother of Public Chain”, Ethereum 2.0 is highly anticipated by the industry, and its progress has always affected the eyes of the community and investors. In the process of proceeding steadily according to the plan, 2.0 is getting closer and closer to us. People expect not only the efficiency improvement of the blockchain network brought by Ethereum 2.0, the change of economic model, but also the future value of ETH.
On the other hand, the data and development adoption rate on the Ethereum chain continued to rise in the first quarter of this year, and large investors steadily increased their holdings. Once known as the “bull market engine”, Ethereum, which brought the historical peak to the cryptocurrency market, can this time ignite market sentiment again and bring the next stage of the bull market?
The number of ETH active addresses reaches more than 15 million
The Staking program will be launched as early as July
On May 8th, Ben Edgington said at a panel discussion hosted by Ethereum News that Beacon is the starting point of Ethereum 2.0 and may be released within weeks to months. “I have 80-90% confidence that the beacon chain will be put into use in the third quarter.”
Beacon is a major milestone in stage 0 of the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap. At that stage, the beacon chain will be the main chain of Ethereum 2.0 and will use the PoS (Proof of Stake) consensus mechanism. At the same time, the beacon chain is also the core of Ethereum 2.0 and the “command and control center” of the entire Ethereum 2.0 network. This new blockchain can coordinate the operation of up to 64 shard chains in the initial stage after it is launched.
Previously, on April 28th, Joseph Lubin, the co-founder of Ethereum and founder of ConsenSys, published a new FAQ about the PoS version of Ethereum. The document mentioned that the planned time for the launch of ETH 2.0 has not been affected by the covid-19 virus outbreak and market depression. influences. Just like the previous plan, the Ethereum 2.0 plan is launched in at least three stages, namely stage 0, stage 1 and stage 2.
Among them, phase 0, that is, the beacon chain will start in 2020; phase 1 may be launched in 2021, and Ethereum will be mainly improved to the integration of shard chain; in the intermediate transition period from phase 1 to phase 2, ETH1.0 The network will be merged with ETH2.0, and the current Ethereum blockchain will become one of the 64 shards of the shard chain; the final stage 2 is an execution stage, and the Ethereum 1.0 network will be completely replaced by the 2.0 network Contracts and applications will begin to operate, and this phase may start in 2021 and 2022.
In stage 0, the beacon chain and the original Ethereum blockchain will exist in parallel at the same time. The beacon chain operates under the PoS mechanism, and the original Ethereum will continue to operate as a PoW chain. The beacon chain that adopts the PoS mechanism means that users can conduct staking. By pledge their Ethereum tokens on the Ethereum 2.0 network, they can participate in the verification of new blocks and help maintain the network. In return, users can get corresponding Of locked tokens. The more tokens involved in the pledge, the greater the return.
Staking is a business model of holding money and generating interest. Token holders obtain block rewards and dividends through pledges, voting, commissioning and locking tokens. They are currently widely used in PoS and DPoS projects. In layman’s terms, it’s a bit like storing money in a bank to get interest. Investors will pledge the corresponding tokens on the platform of the node verification service provider, and the service commercials will use these tokens to mine POS and DPOS. After obtaining the profits, the profits will be distributed to the investors.
The Staking plan will serve as a brand-new economic model of the Ethereum blockchain, and it also involves the issues that ordinary investors are most concerned about-how to participate in de-staking and how much revenue can be obtained on the beacon chain?
The ecological benefits and economic value of “pledge”
Staking mode is not a new game in the industry. It has been popular for a long time, and it is currently popular in PoS and DPoS blockchain systems such as EOS and Tezos. As the most influential public chain, the change of the PoS consensus mechanism of Ethereum 2.0 and the Staking model have received much attention because of the impact it can bring to the Ethereum network and ecosystem.
On the one hand, the pledge model can not only bring more ordinary currency holders into and participate in ecological construction, and make the network more decentralized; on the other hand, it can greatly reduce the issuance and circulation of tokens.
According to the previous introduction by the Ethereum developers, to become a verifier on the Ethereum 2.0 network, you only need to deposit 32 ETH into the official Ethereum 2.0 Launchpad. This greatly reduces the participation threshold and investment cost of investors, allows more retail investors to participate in the governance of ETH, and can profit from it. To a certain extent, it can also make the network more decentralized.
In terms of token issuance, in the latest issue of the POV Crypto podcast, Vitalik Buterin emphasized the impact of the transition to PoS on the Ethereum network and ecosystem, and why such a transition is very suitable for Ethereum and its distribution model. He said: “One of the reasons for PoS is to reduce the issuance significantly. According to preliminary calculations, if everyone participates, the theoretical maximum issuance of ETH 2.0 is about 2 million per year.”
In addition, Ethereum technology development company ConsenSys in a recent report on the Ethereum 2.0 Staking ecosystem, surveyed 287 Ethereum holders, 32.8% intend to run their own verification nodes, and 33.1% intend to use third-party staking Quotient. Analysts said that if a large number of users participate in the staking pledge, it means that the amount of ETH in circulation will also decrease, which may bring about a huge economic transformation in the crypto field.
ConsenSys survey results of staking preferences of ETH holders
However, it should be noted that for ordinary investors, it is not as easy as expected to obtain income through pledge. The Ethereum 2.0 network must go through some key nodes before token holders can begin to obtain the potential benefits from staking. ConsenSys of Global Product Strategy Officer Myers Collin (Colin Myers) on 2.0 Staking roundtable Ethernet Square summit said, first and foremost is a node, Ethernet Square first block of 2.0 or “record The “World Block” will wait until the total amount of Ethereum tokens pledged exceeds 524,000, that is, about 16384 validators will be born. Until then, no one will be rewarded. Regardless of whether it is a verification node or an investor who pledges tokens, they can only wait until the beacon chain reaches the initiation threshold, which means that blocks will be generated before they can be awarded.
Is the “bull market catalyst” still alive?
Network scalability and efficiency issues are unavoidable for mainstream blockchain platforms, and will also determine their future adoption rate and landing prospects. In the face of this problem, Bitcoin (BTC) chose an off-chain expansion solution such as the Lightning Network, Bitcoin Cash (BCH) chose to expand the block capacity limit, and Ethereum (ETH) chose the most suitable path -Sharding.
Although initially the main motivation of Ethereum 2.0 was just to expand the network, improve efficiency, and expand the network ecology. But for market investors, they often cannot avoid paying attention to the value of ETH . To put it bluntly, will the price of ETH increase?
In the market bull market in 2017, Ethereum has deservedly become a “bull market catalyst” or even an “engine” with its hot 1CO boom. So this time, the major upgrade of Ethereum 2.0, the impact behind it on the ecology and network, can help ETH appreciation, ignite investor enthusiasm, and bring a wave of bull market?
The answer is worth looking forward to. First of all, the PoS pledge model is likely to attract a large amount of funds to pour into Ethereum 2.0 for pledges to earn rewards. This brings the demand for ETH, and on the one hand, it brings a reduction in circulation. Coupled with the current growth of DeFi projects, more and more ETH will need to be locked in smart contracts as collateral.
In addition, ETH is increasingly popular among institutional investors. According to grayscale company (Grayscale Investments) in the first quarter inflows Monetary Fund encryption products, it has been the most Bitcoin and grayscale Square Ethernet favor. But after January 28, 2020, the rate of capital inflow into Ethereum began to be much faster than the rate of inflow into Bitcoin.
The distribution map of the accumulated inflow fund products of the gray company
It cryptopotato.com reported that as of 2020 Nian 4 Yue 2 4 Ri , the company has 13,255,400 shares of the gray Ethernet Square Trust Fund, in accordance with each calculation is 0.09427052 ETH, gray bought 756239.777 ETH. The latest data shows that the total number of ETH mined from the beginning of 2020 to April 24 was 15632458.75, which means that grayscale bought nearly 50% of all mined ETH in 2020 . Grayscale also previously outlined the growing interest of institutional investors in its report, and hinted that the upcoming Ethereum 2.0 may be the reason behind it.
As the time node approaches, the changes that Ethereum 2.0 brings to the blockchain and encryption market ecology are more and more worth looking forward to. Although this process is complicated and faces challenges, once it succeeds, it will have great significance for Ethereum and the entire blockchain ecology.