Beacon Chain | The Ethereum 2.0 Staking

Have you ever experienced a drastic change in the efficiency of a machine after changing its engine? Every machinery is functioning through it its engine, if the engine is fine, you’ll see the seamless operation, and if you upgrade the engine, you’ll see a much better performance.

Well! You might be wondering why I am talking about machines and engines in a write-up about Beacon blockchain. Hold on! You will be able to correlate the whole scenario in a while.

ETH blockchain was running on the execution layer proof-of-work mechanism before 2022. But, the engine of this chain changed in midflight, and the name of that engine is Beacon Chain.It means Beacon Chain which was rolled out in the blockchain industry to test the Proof-of-Stake consensus layer mechanism, integrated with ETH Chain, and with this upgradation, it becomes ETH2.0, an improvised version of ETH.

So! Now, probably you’re able to understand the concept of the engine as a Beacon Chain in the ETH blockchain that drives the staking and governance layer in the ETH ecosystem. Let’s dig out more vital information about the Beacon Chain further to understand it deeply.

The Beacon Chain is avitalfactor of the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, which objects to transitioning the Ethereum network from a proof-of-work (PoW) execution mechanism to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. It serves as the backbone or can say an engine of the Ethereum 2.0 network by coordinating and organizingthe consensus among validators.

The Beacon Chain is accountable for managing validators into committees, proposing and finalizing blocks, and facilitating the consensus protocol. This PoS mechanism eliminates the need for mining and block propagation and also handles the creation and maintenance of shard chains, which will allow Ethereum to grow and operate a significantly higher number of transactions seamlessly and quickly. In addition to this, unlike the PoW mechanism, it supports voting and staking as well as improvised security and efficiency.

• Shards and the Beacon Chain: Sharding is not a new concept in the blockchain industry. After the implementation of the PoS mechanism, it enters the ETH ecosystem. This process includes the process of breaking up the entire database into smaller chunks (Known as Shards) in order to reduce the burden of the network. In ETH2.o, the database breaks out in 64 shards. This Sharding came into implementation after the merger of Beacon Chain.

• Beacon Chain wallet token: The native token of the BNB Smart Chain and BNB Beacon Chain is BNB which stands for “Build and Build”. It fuels both chains and apart from this, it serves as a governance token and also fuels transactions made on Beacon Chain wallets.

• Beacon Chain deposit contract: If you want to transfer funds from ETH Mainnet to Beacon Chain, you need a Beacon Chain deposit contract parallel to the Proof-of-Stake mechanism that enables you to transfer.

• Beacon Chain checkpoints: In the process of activation, you will see epochs. Every epoch of a validator contains 64 slots and this checkpoint is a block available at the first slot of an epoch. There is only one checkpoint block for an epoch but it is not true vice-versa as a single block can be a checkpoint of multiple epochs.

A few things about Beacon Chain Validator Activation and Lifecycle you need to be familiar with are as follows:

• If you want to activate one validator, you need to stake at least 32 ETH on ETH Mainnet. On every 32 ETH staking (Ethereum Beacon Chain staking), one validator will get activated. You need to look at the staking rewards and penalties from the knowledge base of the Beacon Chain website before proceeding. You may prefer to visit Ethereum Beacon Chain Explorer to see real-time market data.

• Once the available stacked balance of a validator reached 16 ETH, it will be ‘forced exit’ (deactivated) by Beacon Chain, currently, you are not able to withdraw the remaining validator balance.

• There is also a “voluntary exit” facility available on the Beacon Chain. It can be accomplished within 9 days after staking and will ask you to serve 2,048 epochs to avail of this service.

• The complete lifecycle of the Beacon Chain validator includes the process of Deposit, Activation queue, Activation, Slashed n’ Exited/ Unlashed n’ Exited, and Withdraw.

Final Talk!

Beacon Chain was launched as a separate blockchain to ensure the sustainability and efficiency of the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism on ETH Mainnet. It was launched in Sep 2020 and after drawing a huge audience and extensive growth in the DeFi industry, it got merged with the ETH blockchain (that was operating under the PoW execution layer mechanism) in 2022 and brings the ETH2.0 into existence after the merger.

Now, both of the mechanisms are working on different layers separately, and due to the PoS mechanism, ETH blockchain transactions got more secure, efficient, and prompt. Initially, users experienced some Beacon Chain issues such as finality and transaction issues, but the chain responded to the obstacle quickly, updated the chain, and tackled the issue within 24 hours. So, there is nothing to worry about, the ETH2.0 is all set to hone your experience in trading and staking.

What is a Beacon Chain &What did the Beacon Chain do?