Valid Points: Ethereum 2.0 Soars Past 1M ETH Staked - CoinDesk

Since the epic launch of Ethereum 2.0 last Tuesday, there have been tons of data about its activity to decipher and analyze.

Early statistics shared after the first day of launch in our previous newsletter revealed how Eth 2.0 was inundated with 66% more funds than the minimum required to secure network operations. We were also able to view in real time the progression of over 100 epochs, in which more than 3,000 blocks were processed by validators.

Heading into the network’s second week of live development, we’re seeing the total amount of staked ether continue to rise for the network from 66% to 141% above the original threshold of 524,288 ETH. We’re also seeing a higher number of blocks and epochs finalized on the network, which is positively impacting the amount of rewards validators accrue daily.

We’ll take a deeper look at some of these Ethereum 2.0 metrics in our weekly Pulse Check. Then, for the New Frontiers essay, we’ll explore some of the scaling solutions to Ethereum that are being developed alongside the Eth 2.0 upgrade.

Pulse check

One full week has passed since the launch of Ethereum 2.0 on Tuesday, December 1.

Over that time period, deposits of 32 ETH (worth roughly $19,000 at time of writing) to the network have increased an additional 40% to 1.2 million ETH. This means that roughly 1.1% of the total circulating supply of ether is locked into securing the new proof-of-stake network. These funds will be immovable until developers enable a two-way bridge between the current Ethereum blockchain and Eth 2.0.

For now, users who have deposited the minimum amount of 32 ETH to Eth 2.0 can do little else with their funds except validate. Validating on Eth 2.0 primarily consists of proposing new blocks and attesting to blocks that other validators have proposed. With each proposal and attestation, validators earn rewards that are automatically added to their staked ETH.

The first day of Eth 2.0 brought an average earning of 0.00569 ETH. This is slightly higher than what we reported in our previous issue of Valid Points, which was 0.00403 ETH. (Our calculations counted the rewards earned from the first 100 epochs rather than the full 112 epochs initiated on that day.)

As explained in our first Valid Points issue, an epoch on Eth 2.0 is a cycle of time lasting roughly 6.4 minutes in which up to 32 blocks on the network can be processed.

While on the first day only 112 epochs were initiated, the subsequent days saw more than 1,500 epochs in which more than 42,000 blocks were proposed. As a result, average daily validator income has almost doubled to 0.011 ETH/day as of Tuesday, Dec. 8.

One final metric to highlight in today’s issue is the validator participation rate which, as of Monday, Dec. 7, is at an all-time high of 99.22%.