Mark Weaden
The single largest Beacon Chain contract worth $33.5 billion is trapped until the Ethereum mainnet merger unlocks it.
A contract with 8,641,954 Ether (ETH) is inaccessible and cannot be touched. The Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain staking contract launched back in November 2020. Without a hard fork, the Ether will be trapped.
As yet, the terms of the hard fork are yet to be decided, which makes this all the more interesting. People who have been sending ETH into the contract were well aware of this. They may have to wait until the Beacon Chain merges with the Ethereum mainnet.
What is the Beacon Chain?
Ethereum 2.0 (Eth2) has been a long project with a lot of setbacks. But, the development of the Beacon Chain is the first major step in Ethereum's goal of switching from a proof-of-work mining consensus to a proof-of-stake one.
A trader must stake a minimum of 32 ETH to become a validator. With the Beacon Chain contract containing $33.5 billion worth of ETH, there is high demand and trust in the future of Eth2.
The testing phase of Eth2 has been split into three phases, principally for non-technical users, novice developers, and developers well-versed in the Ethereum blockchain.
Once the merge of the Beacon Chain into Ethereum mainnet takes place, the transition to the new proof-of-stake Eth2 blockchain will be complete. Official reports suggest that the merger could be completed by Q1-Q2 of 2022.
