Little more than a month after launching, the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain now holds 2.7 million Ether (ETH), worth $3.8 billion. The combination of the Ether price rally and an ever increasing amount of stakers have propelled the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain to become the third largest blockchain by staked funds. This is an increase of more than 1 million ETH since Cointelegraph’s last progress report on Dec. 18. Since then, Ethereum surpassed Tezos (XTZ) but is still lagging behind both Polkadot (DOT), with its $10.4 billion locked, and Cardano (ADA), with $8.3 billion. Compared to other staking competitors, Ethereum’s percentage of …

While Bitcoin has exhibited a stagnating monetary trend over the course of the last week or so, showcasing minor gains of just 3%, its crypto cousin Ether (ETH) seems to be on a roll by not only holding its own against the U.S. dollar but also consistently floating around the $1,300 threshold, and now ultimately, briefly surpassing the all-time high value of $1,428. It’s interesting to note that unlike Bitcoin (BTC), Polkadot’s DOT and Chainlink’s LINK, as well as a host of other decently sized altcoins, ETH is one of the few premium digital assets to have not surpassed and …

A blockchain project says it makes Bitcoin programmable in a way that it hasn’t been before — enabling apps and smart contracts to be brought to the network. Stacks (formerly known as Blockstack) aims to position BTC as the foundation for a better internet that’s owned by users. Those behind this ecosystem argue that the internet is broken, with tech giants dominating the landscape. Stacks is a Layer 1 blockchain that uses Bitcoin’s infrastructure as a secure base layer. Smart contracts and apps can be enabled with little modification, with “minimal transaction load” on the network. Underpinning how scalable Stacks …

A new decentralized ecosystem for financial services is aiming to deliver greater levels of interoperability — in a world where hundreds of blockchains can’t talk to each other. The One-Stop DeFi Interoperable Solution (known as TosDis for short) offers white-label solutions — allowing projects to offer services such as staking, yield farming and liquidity staking to their users affordably and securely. This helps eliminate technical barriers as well as the high costs that can often be associated with development. TosDis also enables cross-chain transfers and liquid staking to be performed securely and trustlessly. An EasyStake feature will mean users receive …

With 2021 less than 24 hours away, Polkadot creator Gavin Wood said the project has built up a head of steam heading into the new year. In a 2020 roundup published on Wednesday, Wood highlighted Polkadot’s (DOT) rise to become the number-one crypto for staking, based on the volume of staked tokens. According to Staking Rewards, over 63% of the 1.02 billion DOT token supply is locked in staking wallets. This percentage amounts to about $5.2 billion in staked DOT “coins” based on the current token price. Indeed, Polkadot is one of the best performing top-10 altcoins in December. Since …

The end of 2020 has been huge for the crypto community. Not only was there a spectacular price surge across digital assets, possibly signaling the beginning of another bull market, but there was also the launch of Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain, which has been in development for some time. The long-awaited update to the Ethereum blockchain transforms the network from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake consensus model and is intended to improve speed, security, lower transaction fees and fix the scalability issues that have been holding Ethereum back throughout 2020. Ethereum 2.0 is still in the very early stages of …

The Free TON project, a community-led software evolution of Telegram’s ultimately ill-fated attempt at launching a blockchain, announced on Tuesday the launch of the project’s effective mainnet. The network had originally launched in May 2020, building on Telegram’s code base but otherwise showing no association with the communications company and related $1.7 billion initial coin offering. Tuesday’s mainnet announcement is mostly a formality, as it does not involve new network launches. Instead, the developers have chosen the date to mark “sufficient decentralization” of the network and an effective mainnet start. A livestream ceremony was held to celebrate the occasion, featuring …

Ethereum 2.0 has already emerged as the fourth-largest proof-of-stake network by total value locked in staking within roughly six weeks of the Eth2 deposit contract going live. Despite withdrawal functionality not yet enabled and no precise estimation for its full launch date, nearly $1 billion worth of Ether (ETH) has already been designated for staking. According to crypto data aggregator Staking Rewards, more than 1.5 million Ether or 1.35% of Ethereum’s supply has been deposited for staking. Ether staking rewards are currently estimated at approximately 13.20%, meaning that a single stake of 32 ETH would earn $2,725 over one year …

The year 2020 has been nothing short of spectacular for Ethereum. Between Ethereum 2.0 and the quest for scalability, the decentralized finance explosion, and the successes of interoperability and money settlement — just to name a few — the richness of narratives underpinning Ethereum has arguably surpassed Bitcoin itself. Whereas Bitcoin is the reliable, stoic uncle, Ethereum can be described as the maverick cousin of the crypto world. But of course, a volatile environment hits hard both ways. Peaks of excitement and success almost need to be counterbalanced by troughs of disappointment and failure. Ethereum had plenty of both this …

On Dec. 2, shortly after the long-awaited release of Ethereum 2.0, platform founder Vitalik Buterin announced an updated roadmap. At first glance, it does not differ much from the previous version from March. However, it brought some clarity on current progress and further stages, giving grounds for estimating how soon a full-fledged transition to proof-of-stake and the launch of sharding can be expected. Just a spoiler: The full implementation of Ethereum 2.0 will not be coming soon. Formally Ethereum 2.0, but not yet Dec. 1 marked a pivotal event for the entire crypto industry as the first block of the …

The first half of 2020 was pretty tumultous for Waves (WAVES), as the altcoin underperformed Ether (ETH) price by 36%. While it was once a top-20 cryptocurrency for a brief period back in Dec. 2018, the proof-of-stake project created by the Russian physicist Alexander Ivanov in 2016 seemed to have lost its traction. The platform's success was initially based on its mobile application designed to streamline the user experience of decentralized applications (dApps) usage. Waves blockchain combines on-chain governance with blockchain-based computing but unlike Ethereum, it offers fixed fees. This means there are no variable processing fees for miners and …

The highly anticipated security and scalability upgrade to the Ethereum network launched as planned on Dec. 1, marking a huge milestone for the Ethereum community. On the surface, the Eth2 Beacon Chain will help ensure an increase in scalability and capacity across the Ethereum network. However, the initial launch of the Beacon Chain signifies much more than promised network benefits, and could potentially drive enterprise blockchain adoption even further. Corey Petty, chief security lead at Status — a globally distributed collective working to build products, tools and infrastructure for Eth2 clients — told Cointelegraph that Phase 0 of the launch …