The Ethereums deposited to this contract addresses are important as the launching of Ethereum 2.0 phase 0 depends on them to kick off. The deposit requires 524,288 ETH to be deposited in batches of 32 ETH, all tokens stated must be deposited 7 days prior to the date estimated to be the launch date for it to kick off which in this case is the 1st of December.

The ETH2 Deposit Contract currently has 50,332 Ethereum deposited, leaving it with 473,956 more ETH needed.

 “As stakers get their coins out of cold storage, get comfortable with the tools and confident that the tools work and they’re not accidentally throwing their coins away, etc.” Vitalik said.

Vitalik said that he is also expecting investors to participate later on, probably even on the last day.

“If you look at the ether sale in 2015 for example, there was a significant (but disappointing) level of participation on day 1, then very little on days 2-12, and then on day 13 and especially 14 (the last day with a full discount) there was a huge spike that ended up being something like half of all ether that ended up going into the sale. So it’s very possible that here too we’ll see a quiet period and then lots of participation in the last week of November. But this is me just speculating, we’ll see!”

One of the factors that could be affecting the turn up of participants for depositing into the ETH2 Deposit contract address could also be the fact that the crypto market has been performing so well and people would rather trade or hold on their investments and watch them grow.

The ETH 2.0 phase 0 will not have a direct effect on the existing Ethereum blockchain network, a release of phase 1 and 2 will help switch Ethereum from a Proof-Of-Work (POW) mechanism to Proof- Of- State (POS) consensus with more security, scalability and of course use cases.

Developers had launched Medalla back in August. Mallela is a test net that served as a multi-clients dress rehearsal for the operation of ETH 2’s phase phase 0 launch.

YouTube Promoted Scam Ads

It is surprising or a bit disgusting and annoying to find out that YouTube could actually allow promoted cryptocurrency scam ads to be displayed to millions of their customers, they do not allow legit cryptocurrency ads to be advertised, so why allow scams. Recently, these misleading ads have been constantly displayed on YouTube videos. YouTube at some point started removing videos that had anything to do with cryptocurrency, they however debunked it as an error promising to reinstate the videos back. (Forbes article).

With all that has been happening, one is left with the option of wondering if the Google subsidiary YouTube is very well conscious of what they are doing and seriously wants to paint cryptocurrency as a bad choice to newbies who are most likely going to fall to the scam.

What the Scam Ads look like

You would normally see them anywhere you would have seen a YouTube ad (before and in between videos). Sometimes too they are uploaded like a live stream on the Video platform. The scammers take videos of popular individuals in the crypto space like CZ, Vitalik , Elon Musk and even recently the CEO of Cardano Charles. They take these videos of them speaking in public gatherings like blockchain summits, on these videos they add text promising you 100% or more returns of your initial deposits almost immediately.

It is worth noting that YouTube is yet to address any of this and it is alarming because individuals are losing money on these scams.

Here is what CZ had to say

Meanwhile, we can’t even buy ads on YouTube…  crazy world.Quote Tweet

ADAs CEO, Charles Hoskinson

Will Scam always be there?

Sadly, the answer might be YES. Our daily lives are filled with it honestly, in Banks, in Face to face dealings and the rest of them. We could however minimize the risk of getting scammed by learning and understanding how they work, and fixing the amount of greed we have. When offered something too good to be true, let’s try to contact the official handles or communities to confirm them before sending funds.

They will try to be smarter and create new ways to scam, but so will you, you will be ready.

With the latest Torus update to V1.7.2, users can send cryptocurrency to any twitter or Github accounts, they can do this even if they haven’t logged into the Torus wallet app before. The new update also offers users the option of creating a new Ethereum wallet with any of the following social media handles : Google, Facebook, Reddit, Twitch, Discord, Apple ID, Github, LinkedIn, Twitter, Line and Passwordless Accounts. 

Crypto Twitter

This news is most beneficial to the Crypto Twitter (CT), a term used to refer to cryptocurrency traders and investors on the twitter social media platform. 

There is a large amount of the cryptocurrency community on twitter, they are sure to make use of the new development to tip individuals or favorites just like it’s down on telegram. 

Testing the new Protocol 

Torus Labs tested the new twitter function on some top cryptocurrency personalities on twitter. They sent Eth to Vitalik Buterin, founder of Ethereum,  they sent to Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and also to Binance CEO CZ. 

Whether or not this individuals received it is still unknown as at the time of writing. 

In a tweet he released on 12th June, he said :

So the million-dollar txfees *may* actually be blackmail. 

He further gave his theory of what he believes happened. 

“Hackers captured partial access to exchange key; they can’t withdraw but can send no-effect txs with any gasprice. So they threaten to ‘burn’ all funds via txfees unless compensated.”

Vitalik also added that this could happen to “Scorched earth” games, he said

Similar situations could happen in “scorched earth” games, including scorched-earth vaults aka “Moeser-Eyal-Sirer” vaults @el33th4xor @ittayeyal, as well as scenarios where hackers can slash but not steal staked funds @drakefjustin @dankrad

Others

The 3rd abnormal tx on ethereum with over 2000 ETH fee went [through]. Someone believes it could be a hacker’s blackmail to some exchange,” twitted NEO Co founder Da Hong fei 

Also, Primitive Crypto founding partner Dovey Wan speculated 

PACKSHIELD

Packshield, a China based blockchain analytics company has explained the outrageous fees to be “gas price Ransomware attack”

The research claims that hackers might have gained access to exchange funds but are not able to transfer these funds out to their personal wallets. They can only move these funds within a range of white listed addresses on the database, so they decide to move a small amount of funds with very high fees, probably to clear off the exchanges funds if a ransom isn’t paid to them. 

How they got in

The report believes they started off by using a phishing attacks to gain access to the exchange. They got in but only to find out that the exchange and a multi-signature security setting. This means that for funds to out, it will require more than just one individual or password to do so. They found out sending funds to white listed address on the database was possible since this only required a single authorization to do so, hence the transactions. 

The hackers might continue doing this until the exchange pays a ransom or maybe not…..

Not long after this, most of the Crypto Twitter community had already chimed in and given their best shot to explain Bitcoin in as simplest terms as possible.

Bitcoin Twitter Response

Elon Musk Responds

Not long after, Elon Musk responding with a tweet that actually made a lot of sense and was bullish for Bitcoin in general.

Drunk Rowling

Unfortunately, Rowling already had 4 strong drinks in her system by the time she got all of these responses from Crypto Twitter attempting to explain what Bitcoin is.

I’m only allowing myself alcohol at weekends during this lockdown and I’m on my fourth very strong Old Fashioned and honestly, you might as well send me a scroll written in Sanskrit. – J.K. Rowling

Ethereum Founder Vitalik Buterin’s Response

One of the best responses I saw was from Vitalik Butern pointing out exactly why Bitcoin is so valuable. With ETH2 Staking launching soon, Ethereum will have a huge surge of demand during all the retail investors getting in.

Fear of Inflation

Lately many people have been discussing the impending inflation that is coming due to the feds printing trillions of dollars for stimulus packages and to prop up the economy during the pandemic. This has stemmed fear into many people that their savings will soon lose much of its purchasing power and as a result, people are considering Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies for the first time.

Recently Paul Tudor Jones announced he holds 1% of his wealth in Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation. Around this time Bitcoin also had it’s 3rd halving event, reducing the total number of Bitcoin created per day.

This means supply is decreasing, while demand is increasing and could cause a huge price spike in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

Conclusion

We are seeing more people take interest to Bitcoin lately than ever before and I believe this will result in a new retail demand for Crypto unlike anything we have seen before.

Bitcoin was created in 2008 during the last recession for this exact purpose. Will we finally see Bitcoin, Ethereum and other crypto’s finally get the lime light and pass the 1 trillion dollar global market cap for the first time?

Ethereum has delayed the launch of ETH2 staking for quite a while now and many are still reluctant to believe it will ever happen, but according to developers on Twitter, it is closer than many would imagine.

Ethereum Developers Say ETH2 Is Close

On April 17th multiple Ethereum developers tweeted about the Topaz testnet which represents the full ETH2 phase 0 mainnet configuration. This testnet will test deposits of the minimum 32 ETH required for staking. If all goes well, we should see ETH2 phase 0 launching in quarter 2.

What Does This Mean For The Price Of ETH?

Many people are anticipating the launch of Ethereum staking and stacking ETH in preparation. 2020 has been a great year for ETH so far and has been the top gainer out of the top 3 crypto’s nearly every time there is any movement.

In the beginning of 2020, it was announced that over 1 billion dollars had been locked up in DeFi and this is increasing rapidly. With the launch of ETH staking, there will be even more ETH locked away. This will remove A LOT of the ETH in circulation and create an increase in demand for the cryptocurrency coin.

With demand increasing and supply decreasing, chances are ETH will be one of the best performing crypto assets of 2020.

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