The birth of Eth2 and the growing decentralized world
A year like no other is certainly an understatement for a year that not only disrupted our shared physical world but which was packed with many major milestones for the growing decentralized ecosystem! It was a year of significant hardships but also a year for the world to truly reflect on how things are – and how things can improve.
DeFi destroyed every possible metric in adoption and use, with over $16 billion total value locked. This has welcomed some criticism but it is also a signal that more and more of us are waking up to the power and utility of an open and accessible financial system. Traditional financial institutions have also started to take notice as important figures and large services (Paypal, Square) are beginning to accept and adopt crypto and central banks are in full charge towards blockchain-based digital fiat money.
BTC reached a new all-time high, as of the time of writing, the 30K mark isn’t far away! ETH is also making great strides as we move into the new year having passed $700 for the first time since 2018. It’s also worthy to note that BTC flew to ETH in droves and ironically Ethereum might become the tech that will scale Bitcoin.
Eth2 and Blox Staking were born.
When Covid hit, our new headspace led us to some soul searching as a company and we decided to follow our passion for promoting decentralization and get involved with the transition to Eth2 – arguably one of the most important network upgrades for blockchain & crypto. Ethereum in its original state is reaching its limits and the migration to Eth2 will allow the foundation of DeFi to reach its goal of powering the decentralized world. In just under a month, over 2 million ETH has been sent to the deposit contract representing close to 50,000 validators, with many more on the way! This is certainly a great start for the network as participation rates remain constant around 99%.
Throughout this process, we’ve been able to deepen our connection with the Ethereum community while also getting the chance to extend inclusivity to others who share the same values. We know we say it a lot but non-custodial is really the only way to go on a security and principle level alike and we are humbled to be involved in developing a decentralized staking tool for Eth2. It was just earlier this year that we shifted gears to create Blox Staking and within the same year, we surpassed our target of 75 validators staking on the Beacon Chain using it. In fact, we are almost at the 100 mark, what a tremendously rewarding rollercoaster ride it’s been!
Similar to Eth2 we’re in the equivalent Phase 0 with Blox Staking.
We will continue to develop important features like validator import and payment flow, and strive to solidify Blox Staking as a leading Eth2 platform, but we are also looking forward to realizing the ultimate goal of allowing anyone to stake on Ethereum without financial hindrance with the decentralized staking pools.
We have a ton of work laid out for us and are eager to meet the technological challenges ahead. I would like to extend a special thank you to our community and users, you really made us grow and evolve into a platform that we can be proud of. I personally learned a lot from being in touch with you and I look forward to all of the things we can build together moving forward into 2021.
