Did the Eth 2.0 deposit contract just launch?
There’s buzz that the Eth 2.0 deposit contract appears to have been deployed but there has been no official announcement.
Excitement is stirring in the Ethereum community after the deposit contract was apparently posted on Github, however the lead developers are yet to officially confirm the deployment.
Ethereum developers have warned in the past about the danger of fake deposit contracts, so users should not send any Ethereum to the contract until after an official announcement.
The repository on Github was posted a few hours and appears to have been uploaded by Ethereum Foundation researcher Carl Beekhuizen’s account.
The release of v1.0.0 of the eth2.0-deposit-cli was titled;
“We have a go for Main engine start”
Crypto twitter has been taken over by the U.S. election but members of the Ethereum community have been eagerly awaiting anything official regarding the first stage of the long-awaited Eth 2.0 launch. Reddit also features numerous threads about the apparent launch.
Bankless founder David Hoffman commented on the launch coinciding with election night;
Releasing the deposit contract on election night is Peak #Ethereum https://t.co/i08bqXGDZ0
— DavidHoffman.eth (@TrustlessState) November 3, 2020
Lead developers and community members had yet to post anything on their own Twitter feeds though ConsenSys developer Ben Edgington said earlier today the deposit contract deployment was a matter of hours away.
Hours not days https://t.co/RpiO4ThW29
— Ben Edgington ⟠ benjaminion.eth (@benjaminion_xyz) November 3, 2020
Despite the title, not everyone is convinced the code therein is actually for the full deposit contract. In response to Ethereum influencer Anthony Sassano posting about the launch, Eth ‘freelancer’ Osin wrote:
Where is the deposit contract in this commit? This is mostly just wallet generation code and mnemonic import code?
— oisin.eth (@OisinKyne) November 4, 2020
The deposit contract is the precursor to Beacon Chain genesis, its job is to allow stakers to deposit 32 ETH in order to initiate the process of Phase 0 launch once enough has been staked. At least 16,384 validators will be needed, which equates to 524,288 ETH staked.
Following Edginton’s premature announcement in late October the deposit contract would be launched imminently, there was a delay in deployment as Ethereum 2.0 coordinator Danny Ryan wanted to wait for an audit on a performance and security-focused signature library called blst (pronounced blast). Ryan said earlier today the “Blst library looks good” in response to a question about the staking contract.
In an update posted last week, Edgington reaffirmed that the audit was going well and they were ready to “pull the trigger on everything.”
In the earlier update, the developer stated that the Beacon Chain genesis event would be just 6-8 weeks after the deployment of the deposit contract. He also warned about fake contracts;
“Many fake deposit contracts and Launchpad front-ends will erupt in the coming days. Look out for the official announcements: do not send Eth to random contracts; this is not DeFi.”
Danny Ryan and Ben Edgington were contacted for comment at the time of writing but had not responded by the time the story went to press.
