The final date for the arrival of Ethereum 2.0 has not yet been defined, but the stakes are still high. According to current figures, 1 out of every 10 ethers (ETH) that currently circulate in the Ethereum network are deposited in the contract of the new version of the network.
According to sample the Etherscan portal, which collects various data concerning Ethereum, there are just over 12.3 million ETH deposited on Ethereum 2.0. The total amount of ETH in circulation, according to figures provided by CoinMarketCap, is 120.6 million. This means that almost 10% of the coins in existence have been deposited there.
In fiat money, the ETH figure in the Ethereum 2.0 smart contract is equivalent to USD 33.9 billion, as can be seen in the CryptoNoticias Price Calculator.
The total of blocked ETH corresponds to those wagered in staking to become validators. Currently, an Ethereum validator has to deposit 32 ETH and there are more than 360 thousand validators waiting for the merger (“The Merge”) of Ethereum to start operating. For now, This stage does not yet have a stipulated datebut it is expected to be activated this year.
It should be noted that the blocked funds, they will not be able to withdraw until several months after Ethereum 2.0 is fully operational.
The growth of these deposits in the Ethereum 2.0 staking contract has had a significant recent increase. In these last two months (March and April), the Etherscan graph shows that it went from 9.7 million ETH blocked in March, to 12.3 million at the end of April. More than 20% in just this period.
How much ETH will circulate?
ETH is a cryptocurrency that does not have a predefined emission limit. It differs in that from bitcoin (BTC) of which it is known that there will never be more than 21 million units.
In the case of ETH 2 ETH is issued for each mined block every 15 secondswith an annual limit of 18 million.
However, there are plans to make the currency co-created by Vitalik Buterin a deflationary asset. Since the activation of the EIP-1559 improvement proposal in August 2021, a certain amount of ETH has been burned (destroyed) for each transaction carried out and more than 2 million have already ceased to exist.
The researcher of the Ethereum Foundation, Justin Drake, had estimated a year ago that the maximum circulating ETH would be 120 million (which is the current circulating).
It is expected that when Ethereum 2.0 is fully operational it will reach the goal of turning ETH into a deflationary asset and that the burning of coins exceeds the issuance. According to some estimates, as CriptoNoticias has reported, that could happen in the second half of this year.