The Ethereum2 Deposit Address just exceeded 10 million ETH coins locked. The Ethereum deposit contract is being used to lock a certain amount of Ethereum coins and receive constant staking rewards for validating transactions on the chain.
To become part of the validator community, a user would need 32 ETH, which is why almost every transaction on the Etherscan transaction page equals 32 ETH. The total value of funds locked in the contract now equals $26 billion, according to the actual ETH/USD rate.
The increased investment rate into solutions like Ethereum staking indicates that the majority of traders on the market prefer lower-risk possibilities rather than regular trading or stablecoin staking.
Currently, the Ethereum staking solution allows for earning approximately 5% APY with a hike to approximately 12% later in the year, according to Coinbase. The increase is tied to the fact that the Ethereum network is going to switch off its Proof-of-Work consensus protocol and turn on pure Proof-of-Stake. The merger will lead to a massive decrease in energy consumption and the increased role of validators on the network.
Numerous on-chain experts noted that Ethereum might face even larger inflows to the contract as the cryptocurrency market becomes more mature and risk-friendly. The average volatility of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has already decreased significantly compared to the same cycles back in 2013-2017.
At press time, Ethereum is going through a tough short-term correction and losing around 6% of its previously gained value, along with the majority of cryptocurrency wallets. In the last three months, Ethereum has lost over 60% of its previously gained value.
Alex Dovbnya
