As the development of the Etheruem 2.0 upgrade progresses, cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has announced that investors can now join the waitlist to be first in line when new Ethereum staking features launch.
One of the most prominent features of Ethereum 2.0 will be the transition to a proof of stake (POS) consensus mechanism, which will allow nodes to increase their chances to be selected to validate transactions and create new blocks based on their ETH stake instead of computational power.
Now, Coinbase is looking to be one of the first exchanges to offer rewards to users who stake their ETH in the platform, offering them up to 7.5% Annual Percentage Yield (APY) in rewards by holding their ETH.
Ethereum 2.0 requires nodes to stake a minimum of 32 ETH to generate rewards as a validator node, but Coinbase will allow any users with under 32 ETH to stake to generate rewards in their accounts.
Coinbase is Looking to the Future
Unlike staking in other networks and platforms, Coinbase users will not be able to use the staked ETH int transactions, to begin with, but it is planned for this to be possible in the months after the launch of the feature.
The exchange will also benefit from allowing users to stake their ETH, charging a commission on the rewards received to support the underlying infrastructure.
Other platforms that have announced Ethereum 2.0 staking are Kraken and MyEtherWallet, which will stake ETH on behalf of their customer in a way similar to Coinbase.
Direct Listing is Looming
As cryptocurrency continues to gather increasing attention from institutional and private investors, gaining endorsement from public figures like Elon Musk, the total market capitalization of the industry has grown by over 60% during 2021.
One of the most important pieces of news during this year was Coinbase’s official announcement of its intent to become a publicly-traded company through a direct listing, back on January 28th.
It had been speculated back in 2020 that the third largest exchange by daily trading volume would be going public via an Initial Public Offering, before the news finally being clarified by the company.
The exchange has been especially popular among large institutional investors through its Coinbase Pro platform, which has played an increasingly important role in the cryptocurrency bull run experienced over the last months.
The announcement of the direct listing filling with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will also play an in the future of cryptocurrency exchanges in the United States, as it would make Coinbase the first major cryptocurrency exchange to be publicly listed if approved.
Ethereum 2.0 has been one of the most anticipated events in the crypto ecosystem since the release of its deposit contract in November of 2020, with investors depositing over 3M ETH by February 15th.
Ethereum continues to be the second most popular cryptocurrency by market capitalization despite the increase in gas prices and saturation, being the foundational network for a great number of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platforms and Decentralized Applications (dApps)
The cryptocurrency achieved its all-time high of $1.867 back on Feb 13th of 2021, as investors remain positive on the future of the platform and the cryptocurrency market continues to soar.
With the redeployment of Ethereum 2.0, users of the Ethereum 2.0 network will be increasing the resilience of the network and improving its efficiency by holding and staking their ETH, greatly increasing the throughput of the network to fight the current saturation.
With competition from other blockchain networks for the crown increasing each day, support for Ethereum 2.0 features will prove to be essential to decide who the winner of the latest race will be.
1,349