The Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain has officially entered into operation

The first phase of the next-generation proof-of-stake (PoS) Ethereum 2.0 is now available starting at 12:00 UTC on Tuesday, according to Beaconcha.in.

"A more scalable, secure and sustainable infrastructure than Ethereum"

A generalized blockchain for decentralizing computer-based applications - from iPhone games to government bonds - known as Eth 2.0 has been under construction since the launch of the current proof-of-work (PoW) network in 2015.

Tuesday's launch concludes the opening act, or "phase 0", of the Ethereum consensus mechanism transition, which will see the network - whose native cryptocurrency, ether, is worth $ 70 billion by market capitalization - radically change the how it settles payments.

“The launch of the Beacon Chain is a tremendous achievement and lays the foundation for a more scalable, secure and sustainable infrastructure than Ethereum,” said Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan. “There is still a lot of work to be done, but today we are celebrating”.

The Beacon Chain will be the backbone of a new Ethereum blockchain, a network designed to keep pace with PayPal (PayPal shares) and Visa (V) in terms of processing speed, rivaling them in terms of transparency and payment purposes.

Eth 2.0 has at least two other technical hurdles to reach its ever-changing timeline: dynamically breaking the Ethereum PoS blockchain into multiple datasets called "shards" and adopting Rollup, a decentralized application (dapp) throughput solution.

The short-term functionality of the Beacon Chain is quite limited. As with previous testnets, Eth 2.0 participants now help “store and manage the register of validators,” according to ConsenSys, Ethereum's infrastructure provider.

However, accounts and transfers remain blocked until at least Phase 2 while the Eth 1.x blockchain continues to operate in parallel. In other words, Eth 2.0 will not be usable for payments until 2022 as a minimum.

The launch of the Beacon Chain

Plenty of customers followed Drake's tweet in preparation for the mainnet launch: the Medalla testnet on July 22, followed by Spadina and Zinken between late September and early October, which ended with the implementation of Pyrmont on November 18.

The long-awaited deposit agreement for Eth 2.0 was released on November 4 by the Ethereum Foundation after a further delay in October, with a scheduled start date of December 1.

To launch, the deposit agreement needed 524.288 ETH seven days before the launch date. Although large amounts of ETH were included in the contract, including about $ 1,4 million by Buterin himself, it took nearly two weeks to complete.

The last week has provided customers with an additional buffer to adjust to last minute specs. At the time of publication, 880.992 ETH worth approximately $ 542,7 million is locked in the deposit agreement.