[Update] Ethereum 2.0 countdown, daily changes in staked amount

Recently, with the release of the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract, users' enthusiasm for Ethereum has begun to heat up. The Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain is scheduled to be launched on December 1. In order to start, the storage contract needs to deposit a minimum of 524,288 ETH (16,384 validators).

As of 10:50 on November 16, 93,248 ETH participated in the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract pledge. The current pledge rate has reached 17.78%, and at least 431,040 ETH are needed to launch the main network. It is reported that when the minimum pledge requirement (5,244,288 ETH) is met, the annualized staking reward can reach 21.6%. When the staked ETH reaches 10 million, the annualized staking reward is 4.9%.

Minimum requirements for participating in staking

There are three minimum requirements to participate in staking:

1. Have at least 32 ETH;

2. A computer that meets the hardware specifications;

3. Network link.

For detailed operations, please refer to "How ordinary people can run Ethereum 2.0 nodes at home"

Participate in staking income

To incentivize people with ETH to participate in the network and become validators, validators will be rewarded for fulfilling their duties. Every 6 minutes, validators will receive a task, and if they complete the task, they will receive a reward. The reward will change in a certain proportion based on the total stake of the network. If the total staked ETH is low, the return received by each validator will increase, otherwise the return will decrease.

The current recommended data given by ethhub.io is:

This data is different from ethereum.org. According to the data from ethereum.org, when the minimum staking requirements (5,244,288 ETH) are met, the annualized staking reward can reach 21.6%.

Cost and Risk of Participating in Staking

Calculate costs

Users need to run at least a validator client and may also need to run a beacon node, which will generate computing resource requirements;

Beacon Node: Phase 0 can be run on a Raspberry Pi 4 device, but Phase 1 may require more powerful hardware;

Validator Client: One client can run thousands of validators;

It is roughly estimated that the total cost of the beacon node and the validator client is about US$120 (about RMB 790) per year.

Capital Cost

Participating in staking requires at least 32 ETH (about $14,240, or 94,000 RMB). Until Phase 1, all 32 ETH will be locked on the beacon chain and cannot be withdrawn (verification can be stopped).

Uptime and maintenance costs

- If the user is online for more than 50% of the time (assuming normal network conditions), they can maintain their net profit. However, if they are not committed to increasing uptime in some form, they should not risk participating in staking.

- If more than 1/3 of the network goes offline at once, and this situation lasts for more than 4 epochs (25 minutes), all offline validators will suffer a finality leak penalty.

Code Risk

There may be network-wide code risks at present, but these code bugs will be resolved through hard forks.

Security Risks

In addition to failures in the client code, users also need to ensure the security environment of the validator client (internet connection, operating system, hardware, etc.). If their validator client is hacked due to security failures, resulting in forced downtime or misbehavior, they will not be able to recover their funds.

References:

1. https://launchpad.ethereum.org/

2. The Initial Launch of Ethereum 2.0

3. The Economics of Ethereum 2.0

4. How ordinary people can run Ethereum 2.0 nodes at home