The highly anticipated launch of Ethereum 2.0, or Eth2, is scheduled to take place next calendar week. Specifically speaking, Eth2'due south proof-of-stake blockchain known as "the buoy chain" has been confirmed to run aslope the Ethereum network starting December. 1.

Although some members of the blockchain customs remained skeptical about a Dec. ane launch appointment for the beacon chain, an impressive 524,288 Ether (ETH) from sixteen,384 validators has been deposited into the Eth2 contract. As such, at that place is now balls from The Ethereum Foundation that Eth2's beacon concatenation volition indeed become live equally expected.

While impressive, it'southward important to annotation that additional deposits went into the Eth2 deposit contract fifty-fifty later on the target goal was reached. To put this into perspective, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, sent a recent tweet on Nov. 24 showing the impressive amount of transaction across the Ethereum network over fourth dimension:

While information technology'south unknown where these transactions came from, Alex Mashinsky, primary executive officer and founder of Celsius Network — a crypto lending and borrowing platform — told Cointelegraph that Celsius provided 25,000 ETH to ensure that the Eth2 deposit contract had enough funds to launch on time.

Co-ordinate to Mashinsky, the amount of ETH Celsisus deposited was equivalent to $15,125,000 at the time of the transaction. Mashinsky further noted that funds came from Celsius' pool of community assets, explaining that this volition exist used to generate an even higher yield for the community once the Eth2 network is officially launched. Currently, Celsius users can earn up to 7.21% Almanac Pct Yield on ETH held in the Celsius wallet. Mashinsky said:

"Nosotros already have 230 thousand users on the Celsius network, forth with 3.iii billion dollars worth in assets. These users are putting in ETH, assuasive the network to earn yield on information technology in many different ways. The 25,000 ETH contributed to the proof-of-pale Ethereum network will generate another source of yield for our community."

Mashinsky further shared that the growing Celsius community has been modeled off Ethereum, noting the importance of giving back the Ethereum network:

"We built our CEL token on the Ethereum blockchain and used information technology to scale and become i of the fastest-growing companies in crypto. Nosotros are proud to inaugurate the ETH ii.0 Genesis and contribute the final edifice block with 25,000 ETH from the Celsius community and exist a helping hand to a company that helped us scale our ain project."

Hopes are loftier for Eth2, but concerns remain

Although the Eth2 buoy chain is set to launch on December. i, concerns still remain. For example, while scalability bug are expected to exist resolved as Ethereum adopts a proof-of-stake consensus algorithm, the security of some Ethereum smart contracts remains questionable. This has peculiarly come to light with the rise of decentralized finance, or DeFi, projects.

As such, a new working group from the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance called "EthTrust Security Levels Working Grouping" has been focused on creating a set up of divers standards to ensure Ethereum smart contracts are safe to use. The working group eventually hopes to develop a digital registry for secure smart contracts to exist utilized by enterprises.

Additionally, some remain concerned that benefits volition not be seen immediately following the gradual launch of Eth2. Every bit such, the need for layer-2 scaling solutions has become apparent.

Concerns aside, Mashinsky expressed excitement for faster scalability from the Eth2 network:

"Ethereum 2.0 will calibration everything 100 times faster than now. The ability to move Ethereum from a proof-of-work to a proof-of-pale network will open a world of new ideas and opportunities that couldn't be achieved before due to scalability bug."