Ethereum is the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin in terms of total market capitalization.
Currently, the authentication and security of the Ethereum network works similarly to Bitcoin via mining.
But Ethereum is planning to switch to PoS, and upgrades have already begun to achieve that goal.
Where Ethereum opened “staking” contracts and added it to the latest “Beacon” upgrade, which is the backbone of the Ethereum 2.0 ecosystem.
These Ethereum stakes have now raised over 10 million ETH.
That's an estimated $26 billion in constant value at current prices.
Although Ethereum 2.0 has not been officially released, Ethereum holders have already been enabled to allocate their holdings in the Beacon chain.
At the time of this writing, one Ethereum contract holds 10,021,538 ETH, equivalent to $26,124,946,981.62.
While the PoW-mining mechanism requires miners to spend on hardware and electricity to succeed in realizing the rewards, Proof of Stakes puts the whole process in the hands of those who share their ETH holdings.
Vitalik Buterin believes this will reduce Ethereum's carbon footprint while providing it with more transaction scalability.
Buterin said the same about the London upgrade of Ethereum, which failed to significantly reduce gas fees on the network.
Compared to other stakes, Ethereum 2.0 currently has the third highest stake and stake on its network.
Its value was only surpassed by Solana and Terra, while it was already outdone by Cardano.
All Beacon validators are running a full node, which means that the number of Ethereum nodes should increase exponentially when Ethereum 2.0 arrives.
