Quick take:
Phase 0 of ETH 2.0 is officially a GO! Earlier today, validators successfully sent the minimum amount of 524,288 ETH to the deposit contract thus confirming that many were waiting
till the last minute to do so. According to data from the team at CryptoQuant.com, the validators further exceeded this amount by sending 531,872 ETH which is 101.4% of the minimum threshold.With respect to validators, Phase 0 of ETH2.0 needed a minimum of 16,384. This number was also exceeded with a total of 16,621 validators dedicating 32 ETH to the deposit contract. The team at CryptoQuant shared this information via the following tweet.
With the minimum amount of Ethereum reached and exceeded, ETH2.0’s beacon chain genesis is on track for a launch on the scheduled date of December 1st. The beacon chain will be the heart of ETH2.0 by conducting and coordinating the eventual network of shards and stakers. The Beacon Chain will initially exist separately from the current Ethereum mainnet. Sidechains will be introduced sometime in 2021 and based on the progress of the Beacon chain.
As earlier identified, the value of Ethereum was briefly correlated to the number of ETH deposits to the ETH2.0 contract. This can further be confirmed by the value of ETH hitting a 2-year peak value of $621 immediately after the required deposits to the ETH2.0 contract were met a few hours ago.
At the time of writing, Etheruem is trading at $610 with the digital asset signaling a possible retracement from the impressive parabolic run that begun in early November. If there is indeed a correction, Ethereum has the following support zones between its current value and the crucial $500 price area.