The Ethereum network continues to grow in anticipation of Ethereum 2.0. The latest data shows that 23% of all Ether (ETH) are now locked in smart contracts, a quarter of which are on the Beacon chain.
A quarter of Ether on Ethereum smart contracts
This latest development was reported by Anthony Sassano, the co-founder of EthHub. He explains that the amount of Ether locked in smart contracts had reached the same level as when the first DAO ((decentralized autonomous organization) was launched.
It should be noted that the hacking of the first DAO was what resulted in the hard fork between the Ethereum Classic blockchain and Ethereum as we know it today.
The share of Ether supply locked in smart contracts has increased steadily since 2016. However, it has spiked since the end of 2020, coinciding with the launch of the Ethereum 2.0 beacon chain.
Ethereum 2.0 continues to attract stakers
Ethereum 2.0 continues to attract stakers with over 5.4 million ETH stored within the beacon chain. This figure represents 4.6% of the total ETH supply or more than $13 billion. There are also more than 165,000 active validators active on the Ethereum 2.0 smart contract.
The beacon chain continues to progress with growing interest from the Ethereum community in the face of new competition from the Binance Smart Chain. Ethereum 2.0 will switch to the Proof-of-Stake network that is expected to lead to lower transaction fees and better scalability for the blockchain network.
The price of ETH rebounded over the weekend, following the direction of leading currency Bitcoin following new announcements from Elon Musk. It is currently valued at around $2495 with a market cap of $290 billion.
