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Ethereum 2.0

Ethereum Maxis Deploys Controversial Contract On Binance Smart Chain

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The war between Binance Smart Chain [BSC] and the Ethereum network is intensifying in the wake of tremendous DeFi activity. The competition to become a more efficient and better blockchain is far from over and is taking turns that no one ever expected.

Ethereum maximalist reportedly deployed a contract called “TANKS OF TIENANMEN” to the Binance Smart Chain. This was in response to a series of tweets by Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao who said that “Ethereum is a network for rich guys, but soon those guys will be poor.“

What was the point of the “attack” on Binance Smart Chain?

As CZ criticized Ethereum, singling out its Achilles heel: high fees, the ETH community lashed back by creating a contract with a controversial Chinese subject referring to the infamous Tiananmen Square protests that were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing back in 1989.

BSC

For the most part of the year, Binance Smart Chain has witnessed a greater daily transaction volume than Ethereum. As Ethereum’s fees became restrictively high, many people were encouraged to hop onto an alternative despite previously held views regarding centralization and censorship by one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.

Decentralization cannot be taught in a day and even as the creation of BSC in itself, as most experts claim, goes against the very ethos of this industry, it still trumps, at least it is currently doing a lot better than Ethereum in terms of activity.

Hence, the Ethereum maximalist went on to create a contract for which Binance could essentially get into trouble if not taken down.

But was the point made?

According to few in the community, the consequence of this stunt could potentially draw physical harm on Binance employees. Some claimed that the move was not necessary since it is already known that Binance Smart Chain is centralized in nature and that CZ can always take down the contract.

Commenting on the weekend fiasco, the founding partner of Primitive Crypto, Dovey Wan believes that it would not have any impact on Binance. Her tweet read,

“Literally zero impact LOL. Just reveal how childish they are, not taking a side simply commenting on this behavior. Chinese gov failed in shutting down even Huobi/Okex while having them operating primarily in the mainland and what they can do with BSC again?”

She defended Binance Smart Chain and went on to say that the latest contract has nothing to do with “cypherpunk spirit” and that “cypherpunk can do much better”. The exec also added,

“If Ethereum ppl believe the future of Ethereum is as bright as Vitalik gone silent, they should know such naive “attack” can barely harm BSC”

Ethereum 2.0’s Early Launch Could Limit Users From Opting For “Cheaper Alternatives”

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The Ethereum network has time and again been called out for its high gas fees. While several have been migrating into other networks citing gas fees as the reason, these “other networks” have been called Ethereum Killers.

The high gas fees could undoubtedly stagger the growth of the network. With the members of the network suggesting that Ethereum 2.0 could reduce the gas fees while making the network more secure, a crypto influencer urged the Eth devs to fasten the launch of ETH2.

Ethereum Killers Will Emerge If Eth2 Takes Longer To Launch

Ethereum’s transition from proof-of-work [PoW] to proof-of-stake [PoS] is still underway. With the launch of Phase Zero, the developers of the network affirmed that they were working towards this network-wide upgrade. Eth2 has had a notable past as it has been delayed multiple times. Any further delay could cost the network its users, a prominent crypto personality, who goes by the name, Crypto Lark asserted.

Lark Davis, recently published a video that focused on the repercussions of the high gas fees of the Ethereum network. In his video, Davis pointed out that the high gas fees were driving out small investors as only “rich investors” could afford to pay such transaction fees. Binance’s Smart Chain [BSC] has been garnering a lot of traction lately considering ETH’s fees. The BSC network even went on to record more daily transactions than that of the Ethereum network.

Elaborating on the solutions to these issues, Davis said,

“But we’re now to the point where ETH 1.0 – oh we need ETH 2.0 so soon, come on Vitalik, get it going, man – ETH 1.0, most regular users are priced out of using the majority of applications on Ethereum. […] A transaction on Uniswap costs $50 on average these days and that is just crazy.”

While the network intends to bring in Phase 1 by the end of this year, Davis suggested that it could possibly lose a few of its users by then.

Ethereum 2.0 Finds Shelter On Coinbase Even Before Its Launch

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After delaying several times, Ethereum 2.0 had finally made an entry into the crypto-verse. While only Phase zero of the network-wide upgrade made it to the industry, all the other phases are yet to be rolled out. Just as the network is prepping for its huge transition from proof-of-work [PoW] to proof-of-stake [PoS], prominent cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase affirmed its support for Eth2, specifically by offering staking rewards.

In a recent blog post, the crypto platform announced the latest addition and joined several other exchanges in onboarding Ethereum 2.0.

Ethereum Can Get Coinbase Users Yield Up to 7.5%

Just a few months prior to the launch of Ethereum 2.0 aka Serenity, Coinbase had revealed that it would aid the staking rewards bit of Eth2. Coinbase seemed to be keeping its word as the exchange now offers a waitlist that can be joined by those who wish to stay on par with the potential rollout of the Ethereum 2.0 staking rewards.

In its most recent blog post, Coinbase pointed out that those holding ETH would be able to earn an annual staking reward of about 7.5% just by holding ETH. While this process can secure the ETH blockchain better, the exchange urged people to get in on the action. Those who make it to the waitlist would be offered an array of services once Ethereum 2.0 is rolled out.

Elaborating on the perks of joining the waitlist, the post further read,

“Once off the waitlist, there are no minimum amounts required to stake, and customers can convert, stake, and earn rewards on a portion of Ethereum instead of their entire balance. They will also be able to see their rewards add up in real-time through the lifetime rewards ticker in the Coinbase app or on Coinbase.com.”

As of now, the crypto exchange offers the staking rewards service to Cosmos as well as Tezos, ETH seems to be the latest in the list.

This feature is available for everyone except for those residing in New York.

Ethereum Takes A Plunge Towards Berlin Hard Fork

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Ethereum [ETH] remained a constant visitor of the headlines following the launch of Ethereum 2.0’s Phase zero as well as ETH’s price change. As the network’s native cryptocurrency, ETH has been struggling to hit a new all-time high, Ethereum seems to be out and about with its developments.

Ethereum Devs Reveal Specifications For Berlin Hard Fork

The Ethereum network is all about developments. The network has been undergoing an array of developments over the years. While the network is working towards Eth2, a few developers are still operating on developments pertaining to Eth1. The Berlin hard fork has been time and again delayed. However, the developers decided to implement the hard fork during June 2020, after the Istanbul hard fork and Muir Glacier. That evidently was once again postponed.

In more recent updates, James Hancock, the hard fork coordinator for Eth1.0, took to Twitter to announce updates with regard to the Berlin hard fork. Previously, the Berlin hard fork had about eight tentatively accepted EIPs, now the list was edited down to five. These included,

EIP-2565: ModExp Gas Cost
EIP-2315: Simple Subroutines for the EVM
EIP-2929: Gas cost increases for state access opcodes
EIP-2718: Typed Transaction Envelope
EIP-2930: Optional access lists

Hancock affirmed that the code for these EIPs was merged into all the clients part of the network update. A GitHub post revealed that the clients on the list, Geth, Besu, Nethermind as well as OpenEthereum were ready for the hard fork.

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Geth was the only client that did not have EIP-2930 i.e. Optional access lists merged into it. However, the latest tweet from the hard fork coordinator asserts that Berlin is just around the corner.

While the network is sprucing up its developments and upgrades, the price of ETH seems to be having a tough time pushing past its previous all-time high. At press time, ETH was trading for $1,368.40 with a 3% surge in the last 24-hours.

Ethereum’s Daily Transaction Vol Goes Parabolic

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Ethereum has witnessed impressive growth not just in terms of its price but also with regards to the number of transactions on its network. As one of the leading cryptocurrencies, Ethereum’s daily transaction volume has seen a parabolic rise in its figures.

As noted by Messari’s Ryan Watkins, the Ethereum network was currently settling $12 billion in transactions daily. Bitcoin, on the other hand, records a daily transaction volume of 9.3 billion, approximately $3 billion more than Bitcoin.

Messari

The above figure for Ethereum does not include ERC-20s to prevent double-counting from decentralized exchanges [DEXs]. However, Bitcoin’s figures include USDT on Omni. Despite this, Ethereum’s daily transaction volume has surpassed that of Bitcoin by a significant margin.

This can be attributed to the fact that stablecoins and decentralized finance [DeFi] space have been witnessing massive traction especially since mid-2020 which has led the largest altcoin to settle value a lot more than Bitcoin on a daily basis.

Along the same line, CoinMetrics Co-founder, Jacob Franek noted that Ethereum generates more fees than Bitcoin and settles more value. He further went on to explain that this was a good sign since cumulative fees are the most direct measure of aggregate willingness to pay for block space, which indicated a trend of rising demand. He also added,

“Ethereum has the most valuable block space in crypto now. Would it be better if individual tx fees were lower? Yes. That will come with L2 and other scaling efforts.”

Ethereum Still Up by 15% off Its ATH

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The premier altcoin has endured a prolonged period of consolidation that started last week. This, in turn, has facilitated the ETH market to flush out weak hands. At the time of writing, the crypto-asset was in the middle of a fresh rally while Bitcoin continued to take control of $40k.

The reason why Ether is expected to undergo a continued strong price momentum triggered is primarily due to the launch of ETH 2.0 and also the imminent rollout of CME futures next month. In fact, the 2.0 is expected to potentially bolster the DeFi economy in general as the space as a whole will benefit from a substantial decline in transaction fees as well as less congestion.

Total ETH Staked For Ethereum 2.0 Is Up by 250% Of Phase 0 Goal

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Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain was launched a week back. Since the ambitious roll-out, the balance of ETH in the deposit contract has kept on rolling in. This was revealed by the blockchain technology intelligence platform, Glassnode.

As the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract continued to accumulate ETH, the total value staked climbed up to nearly 1.3 million ETH which happens to be around 250% of the phase 0 target. Initially, the contract required around 500,000 ETH to secure network operations, but the number has been on a rise. On the 8th of December alone, more than 81,500 ETH were deposited to the contract.

In addition, the number of blocks and epochs finalized on the network has also risen significantly. This has been positive for the amount of rewards validators accrue daily

GAs the deposit contract continued to amass close to 40k ETH a day, there could be 15 million ETH in the contract by this time next year if the pace continued. This was revealed by Ethereum core developer Eric Connor.

This essentially meant that a lot more than 1% of the total circulating supply of ETH is locked into securing the new Proof-of-Stake [PoS] network. However, there is a catch. The deposited funds cannot be moved until the ether devs activate a two-way bridge between the current Ethereum blockchain and Ethreum 2.0.

All that a user can do is to validate on Ethereum 2.0 which involves proposing new blocks and attesting to blocks that other validators have proposed. With each process, the validators earn incentives which are then added to their staked ETH.

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Furthermore, it is important to note that the deposit contract has been receiving more of the crypto-asset than it is allowed to allot to new nodes per day. In the current scenario, there is a cap placed with regards to the number of validators that can be added each day to Ethereum 2.0 with the upper limit being 900 validators each holding 32 ETH each.

Meaning, just 28.8K new ETH that is being deposited will be deployed in the creation of new nodes while all other coins will have to queue up until a new daily limit is alloted.

Ethereum’s [ETH] Sell-Off Might Not Be Over Just Yet

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Ethereum [ETH] underwent a major correction as it hit a reverse swing even as the long-awaited Ethereum 2.0 mainnet launched successfully. ETH breached through the first major resistance level at $632 before declining to a mid-day low of $563.01. The marketwide pullback triggered over a 10% drop shortly after Bitcoin’s downside correction. Despite partially reversing the losses, ETH was trading below the $600-level.

It noted a decrease of 1.79% over the last 24-hours driving its price to $598.2. At the time of writing, the second-largest cryptocurrency registered a market cap of $67.8 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $28.3 billion.

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Ethereum [ETH] Daily Chart:

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The daily moving averages depicted a bullish case for the coin. The 50 DMA [Pink], as well as the 200 DMA [Blue], continued to lay low settling well below the ETH price candles, with no hints of bearishness in the near-term.

Additionally, the rising gauge between the two daily moving averages was indicative of a long-term bullish outlook among the Ethereum holders despite the abrupt fall. The 50 DMA acted as a firm support level for the coin at $455 while the 200 DMA formed support at the $346 level.

Bearish Hints Continued To Loom

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Despite the strong bullish momentum, the technicals did not appear to be entirely positive. On the daily Ethereum chart, the RSI formed a bearish divergence as it created an overbought reading followed by a lower high that matched corresponding higher highs of ETH’s price.

In yet another bearish projection, the volume indicator [OBV]  suggested that the increasing prices were in contradiction to the declining volume, as it also formed a bearish divergence. Thus, weak volumes behind the latest price recovery hint at a potential sell-off in the coming days.

Ethereum needed to move through the pivot level at $595.2, which it recently breached to aid a run at the first major resistance level at $618. If ETH manages to surpass the aforementioned level, it could then target yet another level at $706.9.

However, if the bears gain control, Ethereum’s price could sink to its immediate support level of $521. Its next support points stood at $455 and $346 respectively.

Ethereum 2.0 Is Live! Beacon Chain Launched

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If ETH 2.0 is successful, it will scale Ethereum’s throughput by over 1,000x without sacrificing decentralization. But it won’t happen overnight: Messari.

Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain just went live. This marks the phase of the journey towards ETH 2.0. At the time of writing, ETH holders stakes over 880,673 ETH, far more than the required threshold of 524,288 in a bid to set the wheels in motion. Ethereum core developer, Eric Connor, revealed that 85% participation so far for 2.0 has been reached, and was above the 2/3rd threshold.

“Onto epoch 1, epoch 0 is finalized.”

ETH

Despite the fact that the leading up process was long and drawn-out, Ethereum 2.0 is finally here despite the fact that a complete transition to Ethereum 2.0 starting today will take several years. A crucial development for the ecosystem since launching the Proof-of-Stake [PoS] blockchain is expected to serve as the backbone and foundation for one of the most valuable smart contract platform

Ryan Watkins had previously stated,

“ETH 2.0 was built to provide the bedrock for the next evolution of the cryptoeconomy. One where Ethereum’s burgeoning ecosystem of composable and symbiotic decentralized finance protocols as well as many more applications can flourish.”

Here’s What It Means For Ethereum Investors

Normally, investors do not need to make any changes in order to prepare for Ethereum 2.0 since Ethereum holdings will not be affected in any way by the arrival of the largest ever upgrade. However, there is a lot of optimism amidst the market participants interested in taking on the new Ethereum network to begin staking at the Genesis phase of the project instead of waiting for Phase 1.5, primarily because the long-term outlook of ETH appeared to be bullish.

One of the main indications of this positive development was the fact that the value staked in the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract address exhibited a strong correlation with the price of the token.

Another factor that could potentially decrease the selling pressure on Ethereum, for the long-term, is the $558 million worth of ETH getting deposited into the 2.0 deposit contract address.

Ethereum 2.0: Validators Lock More Than 100%; Secures Threshold To Launch Mainnet

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After the initial delay and hold up, the threshold to launch Ethereum 2.0 mainnet has been reached as the contract now has enough funds required for the first phase of the 2.0 activation. As the Ethereum community anticipated the launch of phase 0 of Ethereum 2.0, the current proof-of-work [PoW] blockchain, has now reached the required target of 1st December.

Previously TWJ had reported that the growth curve of user participation saw a significant decline due to the complexity involved in the transition to Ethereum 2.0 and the uncertain roadmap of staking rewards which also acted as a roadblock.

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In order for the deposit contract to activate that phase at least 16,384 validators are needed to lock more than 524,288 ETH, the genesis threshold to be reached by 24 November, i.e. a week before the deadline. Just 50% of the required target has been delegated until the very last day. However, in the last 24 hours, Ethereum raced the clock to collect enough coins and blasted past the target with a couple of more hours to spare.

Ethereum 2.0 Upgrade

This formally marks the beginning of the Ethereum network’s shift from a PoW consensus mechanism to a Proof-of-Stake [PoS] in a bid to solve a host of issues including the perennial problem of Ethereum’s scalability While the current Ethereum network can only support around 30 tps; thus causing delays and congestion, 2.0, on the other hand, promises up to 100,000 tps with the implementation of shard chains.

Phase 0 will witness the implementation of the Beacon Chain; which is involved with storing and managing the registry of validators and deploying the PoS consensus mechanism for Ethereum 2.0. This chain will run alongside the existing Ethereum network and will not affect existing users nor the decentralized applications [DApps] on Ethereum. Furthermore, there will be no break in data continuity.

Ethereum 2.0 Bolsters Rally

Reaching the threshold was no less than a milestone for the network which has been plagued by scalability as well as security issues. This, in turn, has further triggered a massive rally for the token, ETH which blew past the $600-mark after more than 2 years.

As the world’s largest altcoin demonstrated strong bullish momentum, it was trading close to a crucial overhead resistance of $619. If ETH manages to breach this level, it is likely to enter the $700 to $900 range respectively as very little resistance was found in the region.

Ethereum 2.0 Sees Poor Participation; More Than Meets The Eye?

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The Ethereum ecosystem is all set to deliver a system-wide upgrade in a bid to boost its compatibility, scalability, and security. Dubbed Ethereum 2.0, this involves the introduction of several protocol improvements, including economic changes impacting regular users. As it unravels after numerous delays, the participation has been a cause of concern.

Yet Another Hold-Up For Etheruem 2.0

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At the time of writing, 95,168 ETH has been deposited so far and there are still over 16.3K 32-ETH validators to meet its 524,288 ETH genesis threshold. The lucrative reward is very much real. So why the hindrance? The main issue that remains is the fear of the ETH stakers is of facing the risks of having their tokens locked in for an indefinite period. It does not end there. In addition, there is always the risk of getting “slashed” if they fail to perform their duties effectively would get them “slashed.” The risk is dual, despite the lucrative rewards involved here.

Further impeding the growth curve of user participation is the complexity involved in the transition to Ethereum 2.0. While the uncertain roadmap of staking rewards has acted as a roadblock. Currently, the deposit contract has collected a little more than 18% of the entire target despite the fact that the upgrade went live in the first week of November. It is important to note that the contract will need to receive the minimum stake threshold a week before the deadline to meet the threshold.

Brighter Side

In yet another interesting development, Bitfly observed that a single entity owns nearly 35% of all the validator nodes.

On the 14th of November, a single address purportedly deposited a whopping16,000 ETH. This comes a week after Ethreuem Founder Vitalik Buterin deposited $1.4M worth of ETH in the Phase 0 contract. This a significant development since most stakers have found themselves in a “to stake or to not stake” conundrum.

Amidst the poor stakers’ count, this news could indeed demonstrate confidence in the Ethereum 2.0 transition since the staking rewards are yields are more than 20%.

Ethereum 2.0 Drives ETH’s Value

Ethereum has witnessed an impressive rally along with its compadre, Bitcoin. Recent data points suggested that the fundamentals appear to be strong for a continuation of the ongoing rally.

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According to the crypto analytic platform, Santiment, the percentage of total ETH being held on exchanges dropped to its lowest levels since the 13th of November, 2018. The almost exact two-year milestone is believed to be a positive sign for the ETH holders, who have historically benefited when supply held off of exchanges is kept low. According to Santiment, this trend essentially suggested that large whale sell-off probabilities will remain limited in the coming days.

This can be attributed to the launch of the deposit contract for Ethereum 2.0 which has been a moving target for the longest time.