Ethereum 2.0 approaches 6 million staked ETH milestone
ETH 2.0 now has 10x more staked Ether to power its proof-of-stake mechanism than the Ethereum Foundation required at launch six months ago. Ethereum 2.0 is approaching what some are calling a major milestone in its short history — 6 million staked Ether (ETH). The Ethereum Launchpad, Ethereum 2.0’s portal for validators to stake their coins, shows some 5.9 million staked Ether and almost 180,000 validators powering the blockchain Wednesday.
That averages out to just slightly more than the minimum 32 staked Ether required to activate the validating software and becoming a validating node on the network. This represents an investment of $66,560 to participate as a validator on the network at the average crypto exchange price at the time of publication.
According to the Ethereum Foundation, validators “are responsible for storing data, processing transactions, and adding new blocks to the blockchain.”
When Ethereum 2.0 first went online in Dec 2020, the foundation required a minimum of 524,288 ETH to be staked before launching. So in six months, Ethereum has swelled with 10x more validators than the minimum network requirements decided by the foundation last year.
ETH rallied this week after reclaiming $2,000, remaining above key support at $2,080 since mid-afternoon Monday (UTC). Traders and investors are bullish for Ether as they anxiously await the London hard fork scheduled for July. At the current price level, the 5.9 million staked Ether is worth some $12.29 billion in market exchange value. That figure represents the amount of money nearly 180,000 validators have locked away in deposit, for the opportunity to power the blockchain.
This qualifies them as good-faith participants in the network, with a stake in following the rules and keeping malicious behavior and software off the Ethereum network. Validators that do not adhere to the network protocol, go offline, or fail to validate, risk losing their staked Ether. Those that help the network follow the rules and achieve consensus as it processes requests from users earn rewards credited to them on the blockchain.
Top Cryptocurrencies with Price Predictions
| # | Crypto | Prediction | Accuracy | CVIX | Price | 24h | 7d | Market Cap | 7d price change | |
| 1 |  BTC |
Bitcoin predictions | 72% | 51 | $27 716.54 | -1.82% | 12.55% | $535 636 495 855 |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |  ETH |
Ethereum predictions | 78.4% | 34 | $1 755.09 | -2.51% | 5.91% | $214 776 666 177 |  |
|
| 3 |  USDT |
Tether predictions | 96% | 1 | $1.002644 | 0.08% | -0.01% | $77 641 115 939 |  |
|
| 4 |  BNB |
Binance Coin predictions | 74% | 47 | $324.28 | -4.30% | 2.71% | $51 200 109 142 |  |
|
| 5 |  USDC |
USD Coin predictions | 90.8% | 2 | $0.999666 | 0.09% | 0.01% | $34 710 233 106 |  |
|
| 6 |  XRP |
XRP predictions | 85.6% | 17 | $0.430223 | -7.21% | 17.82% | $21 920 232 563 |  |
|
| 7 |  HEX |
HEX predictions | 63.2% | 82 | $0.122471 | 17.07% | 52.82% | $21 237 782 043 |  |
|
| 8 |  ADA |
Cardano predictions | 78% | 44 | $0.363953 | -4.28% | 12.00% | $12 636 148 693 |  |
|
| 9 |  STETH |
Lido stETH predictions | 92% | 1 | $2 941.39 | -0.40% | -3.32% | $10 258 752 564 |  |
|
| 10 |  DOGE |
Dogecoin predictions | 73.2% | 57 | $0.074806 | -1.43% | 6.59% | $9 924 596 389 |  |
|
| 11 |  MATIC |
Polygon predictions | 76.4% | 51 | $1.12 | -3.14% | -0.40% | $9 779 730 336 |  |
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| 12 |  SOL |
Solana predictions | 74.8% | 54 | $21.61 | -3.84% | 11.54% | $8 292 848 408 |  |
|
| 13 |  BUSD |
Binance USD predictions | 93.6% | 1 | $0.999732 | -0.05% | -0.05% | $8 061 861 044 |  |
|
| 14 |  DOT |
Polkadot predictions | 72.8% | 50 | $6.15 | -3.06% | 3.23% | $7 193 674 767 |  |
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| 15 |  LTC |
Litecoin predictions | 70.4% | 58 | $87.97 | 7.97% | 12.03% | $6 381 945 113 |  |
