Nearly 10 million ETH staked on Ethereum 2.0

The number of ETH staked on Ethereum 2.0’s new Beacon Chain has exceeded 9.9 million. 

Already 300,000 validators on ETH 2.0

According to data from Beaconcha.in, there are currently more than 300,000 validators on Ethereum’s new Proof-of-Stake-based blockchain, each with an average of 33.5 ETH being staked. 

The new Beacon Chain is not yet really in use, so normal transactions in ETH and ERC-20 tokens continue to be carried out on Ethereum’s traditional Proof-of-Work blockchain. However, the new blockchain, which in the future will incorporate the current one, already has more than 3 million blocks. 

Since it is necessary to stake ETH in order to produce these blocks, which validate transactions, and since the net proceeds are proportional to the ETH that are staked, many have decided to stake their ETH in this way to obtain a reward. 

It is worth noting that ETH staked on the Beacon Chain cannot be withdrawn until it becomes fully operational. Moreover, the date when this will happen is still unknown. 

Staking on Ethereum 2.0: $25.8 million on Beacon Chain

9.9 million ETH today correspond to $25.8 billion, or more than 8% of all existing ETH in the world. 

The fact that on average each of the 300,000 validators is staking more than 33 ETH ($87,000) should not come as a surprise as many of these validators have actually collected ETH from entire groups of people. 

For example, many exchanges allow their clients to stake even a few ETH because they collect them from many users and put them together in staking pools. 

It is also worth bearing in mind that a validator must stake at least 32 ETH in order to be accepted as such on the Beacon Chain. 

According to Staking Rewards, the current reward for Ethereum 2.0 stakers is 4.81% per year, compared to e.g. 6.07% on Terra and 5.72% on Solana.

However, it is worth remembering that these returns are not fixed, but vary over time, and above all that LUNA and SOL staked on Terra and Solana can be withdrawn at any time, while ETH staked on the Beacon Chain cannot. 

Over the past 12 months, ETH staked on the Beacon Chain have increased from 3.4 million on 11 March 2021 to 9.9 million today, a nearly threefold increase. Over the same period, the value of 1 ETH has increased from $1,800 to $2,600.