Gate.io Cryptopedia: ETH 2.0 Staking

ETH 2.0 is the last phase of the development of ETH, behind Frontier (Phase I), Homestead (Phrase II), and Metropolis (Phrase III). The first three phases belong to ETH 1.0. Phase IV (Serenity) of ETH 1.0 officially upgrades to ETH 2.0, in which ETH’s consensus mechanism will develop from proof of work (also known as “PoW”) to proof of stake (also known as “PoS”).

Why does ETH need to upgrade to ETH 2.0?

Higher Scalability

ETH 1.0 only can handle 15 transactions per second. The upgraded ETH 2.0 will spread the load of the network into 64 (maybe more in the future) new chains. Theoretically, ETH 2.0 is capable of handling thousands or even tens of thousands of transactions per second. In addition, it fixes the problem of over-concentration of main network computing, and improves the scalability further.

Environmental Sustainability

Currently, Ethereum is moving towards being secured by PoW. Although there are great advantages when it comes to PoW to ensure the security and decentralization aspect, it is expensive for nodes to safeguard the security of the network. In the end, only one node can find the correct hash value and get the block reward. But all the global participating nodes have paid enormous computing power and electricity, which is not only inefficient but also a waste of environmental resources. While upgrading to the PoS consensus mechanism, ETH will no longer rely on tremendous computing power and electricity to maintain and operate the network but rely on crypto coin-staking equity verification to create blocks and trade in the chain.

The process of ETH 2.0 development

Like ETH 1.0, ETH 2.0 is also divided into several phases. And the most important of these are Phase 0, Phase 1 and Phase 2.

Phase 0: Beacon Chain

This is the very first phase of ETH2 which will implement the beacon chain. As a new chain, beacon chain is responsible for validators’ participation of staking s, so as to maintain the network. It is also the order and control center of the ETH 2.0 eco.
ETH 2.0 network in phase 0 does not support functions such as smart contracts, asset transfers and so on. The only available program is verification. Users can not transfer their assets to an exchange in this phase.

Phase 1: Sharding

The goal of phase 1 mainly is to integrate ETH 1.0 with ETH 2.0. A shard chain essentially is an expansion mechanism of the ETH network, which splits the ETH blockchain into 64 different chains and distributes the data processing tasks to many nodes, allowing them to process these data in parallel. Each shade chain acts as a diversion lane of the congested ETH networks, so as to dramatically improve the processing capacity of the network and produce a higher throughput. Click to get the sharding roadmap: https://eth.wiki/en/sharding/sharding-roadmap

Phase 2: Ex ecution

The current definitions and functions of phase 2 are still under exploration. Phase 2 will comprehensively improve the sharding functions. Each shard will govern EVM based on eWASM and be compatible with smart contracts and, at the same time, can transfer, withdraw and cross-shard transfer. This phase will finish the integration of ETH 1.0 and ETH 2.0. and put an end to the PoW consensus mechanism.

eWASM (ETH WASM) is ETH 2.0's solution targeted with ethereum virtual machine (EVM)’s bottleneck problem. EVMs are responsible for the internal state of the ETH network and all of its computings, which has a significant impact on the speed of performing tasks and the overall availability of the network. The eWASM is a W3C community group open standard instruction set and is developed by top engineers from Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. It supports traditional programming languages, for example C/C++, and 64-bit data processing. It will also increase network processing speed and throughput, as well as security and availability.

Source: https://eth2.ethereum.cn/

How to become a validator of ETH 2.0?

At first, users need to stake 32 ether to the deposit contract: https://etherscan.io/address/0x00000000219ab540356cBB839Cbe05303d7705Fa#tokentxns. Then they should run both ETH 1.0 and ETH 2.0 terminals at the same time to become a validator. As a validator, the node must keep online for a long time. Validators will get a reward from ETH when they successfully verified one block, with an APR of staking interest of about 5-10%. However, if the validator missed the task of verification of the ETH network allocated by the beacon chain due being offline, he would be fined. Malicious and wrong verification will lead to confiscating the staked 32 Ether.

The ETH staked to the deposit contract is an irreversible transaction. Validators will have a possibility to transfer their funds until ETH 2.0 reaches phase 1. Consequently, it still needs two or three years for ETH 2.0 to completely have access to sharding and smart contracts, which means that validators will face the risk of being incapable of withdrawing ETH for at least 2 years. In addition, once mortgaged to the beacon chain, ETH will generate BETH and can not return to the ETH 1.0 mainchain. If ETH 2.0 fails to upgrade, losses may occur to users. As a result, it is not recommended that ordinary users become validators.


Staking ETH2.0 Enabled on Gate.io

According to recent news regarding the Ethereum upgrade, the Ethereum 2.0 (eth2) staking deposit contract has reached the minimum deposit requirement for the launch of Phase 0, scheduled to take place December 1st, 2020. Following the Phase 0 launch, ETH holders will be able to participate in PoS staking by depositingtheir ETH on eth2 to earn rewards.

Taking part in eth2 staking is not easy. It demands a general higher technical expertise, and requires a long staking time (estimated 1-2 years, which may vary as eth2 develops). Moreover, you must run a validator on both the eth1 chain and the eth2 Beacon Chain at the same time and maintain a stable staking status while doing so. Otherwise, your funds in staking may be charged penalties.

Due to the high barriers of entry, eth2 staking is not suitable for every user. To give all users a chance to participate in eth2 staking, Gate.io will provide a flexible eth2 staking solution to users, based on our stably running Ethereum infrastructure and maturity asset management solution.

With this solution, users can earn a staking reward while not needing to lock their ETH in eth2 for a long time or worry about eth2 penalties.
Below you can find more details about our eth2 staking solution.

1) Gate.io will list ETH2 tokens, which will be the certificate for users to participate in ETH2 staking. 1 ETH2 represents 1 ETH locked in ETH2 staking. Holding ETH2 is equal to participating in ETH2 staking.

2) Users will be able to buy or sell ETH2 on USDT and ETH markets freely.

3) Gate.io will distribute the net income (staking income minus cost) from eth2 staking to ETH2 holders as eth2 staking starts.

4) The staking reward will be in the form of ETH2.O, allocated based on users’ average ETH2 holdings over a period of 14 days.

5) Currently, validators are waiting in line for the chance of staking on ETH2. It may take a few days to start staking after ETH2 launches (the delay may vary , depending on the length of the waiting list).

6)The yearly reward % of ETH2 staking is related to the amount of ETH being staked. The yield tends to be higher at an early stage as less ETH is being staked. In the long term, the yield is expected to be stable around 5%-10%.

Trade ETH2 at:

ETH2/ETH: https://www.gate.io/trade/ETH2_ETH
ETH2/USDT: https://www.gate.io/trade/ETH2_USDT


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