The deposit contract for staking Ethereum (ETH) on the Beacon Chain reached a balance of 12 million ETH on Friday. The total locked value of Ether in the Eth2 contract is worth about $34.5 billion. The deposit contract was launched in November 2020 and currently holds around 10% of the total circulating supply of ETH. The Beacon Chain is the first major step in Ethereum's transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus model. A trader must invest a minimum of 32 ETH to become a validator in Eth2. Thus, the largest Beacon Chain contract, valued at $34.5 …

Liquid staking has grown in popularity over the past year, thanks, in part, to the launch of the Ethereum Beacon Chain and the inability of Ether (ETH) stakers to withdraw their tokens until the full launch of the consensus layer. As a result, Lido (LDO) has established itself as a leader in the liquid staking sector. Lido is one of the main staking protocols for several popular tokens and it allows token holders to earn an extra yield by putting their staked assets to work in decentralized finance (DeFi). Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and TradingView shows that the price …

Staking has been used fluently to describe several actions within the world of crypto, from locking your tokens on a decentralized finance (DeFi) application or centralized exchange (CEX) to using tokens to run a validator node infrastructure on a proof-of-stake (PoS) network. PoS is one of the most popular mechanisms that allows blockchains to validate transactions and it has become a credible consensus mechanism alternative to the original proof-of-work (PoW) used by Bitcoin. Miners require a lot of computational power to carry out the energy-intensive PoW, while PoS requires staking coins as collateral to validate blocks and verify transactions, which …

Ethereum's long-awaited transition away from proof-of-work (PoW) mining has recently suffered another delay and is expected to occur in the second half of 2022. Ethereum developer Tim Beiko stated on April 13 that "it won't be June, but likely in the few months after. No firm date yet, but we're definitely in the final chapter of PoW on Ethereum." An automated increase in mining difficulty designed to make PoW mining less attractive is set to become active around May. Known as the "difficulty bomb," it will eventually make blocks "unbearably slow," forcing the upgrade to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network. Such …

Decred (DCR) prices soared by as much as 45% on April 18 before paring some gains as traders bet on a major hard fork that aims to prevent pump-and-dump schemes by miners. Key Decred network upgrade in three weeks DCR rallied by nearly 45% to over $86 in one day, its highest level in four months. Moreover, the massive upside move accompanied a similarly huge spike in its trading volumes, confirming that most traders backed the intraday bullish momentum. Traders flocked to buying Decred ahead of a key upgrade slated for early May that would reduce the DCR mining reward …

The rollout of Ethereum 2.0, or Eth2, includes a transition from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake that will supposedly transform Ether (ETH) into a deflationary asset and revolutionize the entire network. The event has been a trending topic for years and while anticipation for “The Merge” has been building over the past couple of months, this week Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko informed the world that “It won’t be June, but likely in the few months after. No firm date yet.” Delays in Ethereum network upgrades are nothing new and so far, the immediate effect on Ether’s price following the revelation has …

The long-awaited Ethereum Merge is set for yet another delay, with developers working on the upgrade estimating a completion time a “few months after” June. Owing to the success of testing, there was a general expectation the Merge would go through mid year, however the latest setback is unsurprising given that Proof of Stake has been delayed constantly ever since it was first proposed. That said, the signs are promising that the Ethereum mainnet will actually merge with the beacon chain to become a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network this year. For real. Ethereum developer Tim Beiko provided the updated timeline via …

The company behind the Firefox internet browser Mozilla is attempting to appease its environmentally-conscious community by accepting only Proof-of-Stake (PoS) crypto donations. The company initially halted all crypto donations in January, but has now opened them back up after a review period to assess community sentiments and to conduct research on crypto energy usage. An update to our policy on accepting cryptocurrency donations. We got it wrong, we heard you, and we've evolved. https://t.co/0bSThVJsCC — Mozilla (@mozilla) April 7, 2022 PoS blockchains consume less than 1% as much electricity as Bitcoin, although they vary among themselves in efficiency as demonstrated …

Ether (ETH) lost the critical $3,000 psychological support level on April 11 after a 16% weekly negative performance. Bulls were definitively caught by surprise as $104 million in leveraged long futures got liquidated on Monday. Ether's downturn also followed a decline in the total value locked (TVL) in Ethereum smart contracts. The metric peaked at 40.6 million Ether on Jan. 27, and has since dropped by 22%. This indicator could partially explain why Ether could not withstand the adversity brought by Bitcoin's (BTC) 13% weekly negative move. However, the leading altcoin has catalysts of its own because Ethereum developers implemented …

Ethereum developers implemented the network’s first-ever “shadow fork” on Monday, marking an important milestone in the ongoing shift to proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. The shadow fork provides a venue for developers to stress test their assumptions around the network’s complex shift to PoS, according to Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh Jayanthi. “The aim of the Kiln merge testnet was to allow the community to practice running their nodes, deploying contracts, testing infrastructure, etc.,” he tweeted on Sunday. Wondering what the #TestingTheMerge team has been up to? The aim of the Kiln merge testnet was to allow the community to practice running their …

Scott Melker, veteran trader and pocaster, is convinced that major layer-1 protocols should be part of everyone’s investment portfolio. Instead of picking individual crypto projects, such as NFTs or blockchain games, Melker thinks it makes more sense to bet on the blockchain infrastructure on which these projects are built. “Any of these small projects could absolutely go nuts. But you're going to have trouble choosing what they are. You should just own the layer-1 and the infrastructure that they're all built on”, he said in an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph. “You may not own a Bored Ape, but Ethereum holders …

Three market catalysts suggest that Ethereum's native token Ether (ETH) is well-positioned to reach $4,000 this month. Google searches for "Ethereum merge" spike Internet users' interest in Ethereum's upcoming network upgrade, dubbed "the Merge," surged substantially in the week ending April 2, Google Trends' data shows. Searches for the keyword "Ethereum Merge" reached a perfect Google Trends score of 100 on a 12-month timeframe with most traffic coming from the U.S., Singapore, Canada, and Australia. Merge, also called ETH 2.0, refers to the Ethereum network's full transition to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) from Proof-of-Work (PoW), a development that had been touted as …