According to statistics, the number of Ethereum network validators on the Beacon chain exceeded 500,000 as of January 12, 2023. The validator milestone comes as Ethereum core developers prepare for the Shanghai hard fork. Five days ago, the Ethereum core developers released a developer network environment called “devnet 2” for the next update.
Ethereum Developers Launch ‘Devnet 2’ Testnet For Upcoming Shanghai Update; The network exceeds 500,000 validators
On January 11, 2023, Ethereum developers thrown out a new testnet for the Shanghai update, a hard fork that is scheduled to happen in March 2023. The new developer test environment is called “devnet 2” as it follows “devnet 1” released in November 2022. The new testnet was briefly discussed during the All Core Devs (ACD) meeting held on January 5, 2023.
At the time, Ethereum core developers emphasized that the focus remains on staked withdrawals. It’s been 123 days since The Merge, the time when the Ethereum blockchain transitioned from a Proof-of-Work (PoW) blockchain to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) network. The transition meant that instead of miners and ASIC devices verifying transactions, Ethereum validators now handle verification of on-chain transactions at the main layer.
Following the release of devnet 2, the next day the network passed a milestone with over 500,000 validators, according to Statistics from beaconscan.com. To become a validator, a person or organization must physically manage a validator client on the Beacon Chain and be 32 ether. As of January 16, 2023, Ethereum (ETH) exchange rates, the cost to be a validator with just the price of 32 Ether would be just over $50,000.
Beaconscan.com indicates that as of January 15, 2023, approximately 501,215 validators have registered on the Ethereum blockchain. On the same day last year, there were approximately 282,249 ETH validators, which means that the count has increased by 77.58% in the last 12 months. On the day of The Merge, there were 428,438 validators, and today the number is 16.99% higher.
What do you think about the 500,000 validator milestone on the Ethereum blockchain? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.
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