Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract now holds over 5 million Eth worth around $13.6 B.
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The Ethereum environment is in the process of moving from a Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to a Proof-of-Stake as a step of the system's development. The difference between these two is that PoW requires a lot of energy and PoS provide mining power in accordance with the percentage of coins owned by a miner. So, a miner will lose his or her tokens in the case of acting maliciously.
During the Virtual Fintech Forum at StartmeupHK Festival 2021, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said the switch to PoS actually is taking longer than it was supposed. As stated by Buterin, initially the team thought the process will take a year, but it takes six. He added that doing an intricate thing is very likely to last much longer than it is assumed at first.
The Ethereum co-founder also noted that the building of Eth 1 took eighteen months although they planned it would take three months. Buterin said mainly the issues aren't technical but are connected to people. Particularly, there were various inside team conflicts in the five years that brought Ethereum to the place where it is currently.