Ethereum 2.0 Staking Reaches 100,000 ETH While Prices Hit 30-Month High

As BTC reached its highest price since January 2018, Ethereum tapped a new 30-month high a shade under $490. The move came early Wednesday morning, building on the momentum from the past few weeks. This marks the highest price Ethereum has seen since June 2018 in the aftermath of the crypto market bubble bursting six months before it. This time around things are moving in a more positive direction and many industry observers are expecting even bigger gains for ETH:

Call me crazy but I really do believe $ETH is going to full send to $800 before the year is over.

— Anthony Sassano | sassal.eth 🏴 (@sassal0x) November 18, 2020

$800 ETH is not an unrealistic target and would still be 42% off its all-time high at that point, whereas Bitcoin is currently only 12% short of its own ATH. Ethereum validator Tyler Smith has targeted a four-figure price for ETH in the first quarter of 2021 providing that Beacon Chain does launch and Bitcoin does not enter a huge corrective phase.

Everyone is watching Bitcoin, but they should be building a huge position in $ETH

If the ETH2.0 Genesis (Phase 0) goes well (and if Bitcoin doesn't crash and pull the market down in the interim) we will see ETH above $1000 in Q1 2021.

— ⟠ Tyler.Smith.eth ⟠ (@R_Tyler_Smith) November 17, 2020

ETH 2.0 Staking Progresses Slowly

The momentum is likely to continue to build if Phase 0 of ETH 2.0 can actually achieve genesis before the end of this year. At the moment this is looking unlikely, as initial staking has been slow to gather steam. According to the latest update from the ETH 2.0 staking progress bot, over 100k in ETH has now been staked. This only equates to just below 20% of the total needed by Nov 24 to enable a Beacon Chain genesis event to occur on the predicted date of Dec 1.

100,480 ETH has been staked in the Eth2 deposit contract.

423,808 more ETH is needed to launch Eth2.

███░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ 19.2%

— Eth 2.0 Deposit Contract – Progress Meter Bot (@DepositEth) November 18, 2020

Little Incentive to Stake

With around 1.8 million ETH leaving Uniswap over the last week, very little of it has been staked in the deposit contract. Only 23.5% of this total would be enough to reach the target, but DeFi farmers have got better ideas, and the majority of it has been shifted into alternative protocols such as SushiSwap. There is little incentive to stake ETH at the moment as there are no rewards until the mainnet launch. When considering the one-year lockup requirement, trading or farming the asset seems to be a better bet for the majority of Ethereum holders.