The ethereum 2.0 genesis block has successfully launched today at 12:00 UTC, beginning the hybrid Proof of Stake stage for the second biggest crypto network.
More than 21,000 validators participated and some 674,000 eth took part at the genesis launch, with the rest of the ?880,000 eth total being queued to validate in stages of 64 epochs.
That means some one percent of ethereum’s total supply has now been locked for at least two years, with it to be seen how this will change in the coming months.
It should only increase as there is no withdrawal method until full Proof of Stake expected in 2022.
Work has already began on it, as well as on storage sharding which should increase capacity for layer two scaling methods.
For phase zero, everything seems to have gone smoothly with no problem. Blocks are finalizing, stakers are receiving rewards at 20% per year – variable depending on how many stake – and clients seem to be running fine.
The first epoch has finalized as well with the participation rate being at 85%, significantly higher than the 67% required.
So marking a milestone for the world computer which has seen its biggest upgrade yet since it launched in 2015.
