by Lydia Ludmila 
Ethereum 2.0 launch is still the most anticipated event in the crypto industry right now, despite all the trends that have taken over the minds of investors and traders. However, while the exact time and date of the full launch still remains unknown, the portion of ETH 2.0 that is available is reaching a major milestone right now.
According to what is known, Ethereum 2.0 now has nearly 6 million ETH staked. At the time of writing, the exact amount is around 5.9 million Ether, with nearly 180,000 validators powering the blockchain.
On average, this is only slightly above 32 staked ETH, which is a minimum that one needs to stake in order to become a validator for the network. It also indicates that each validator has to stake approximately $66,560 in order to activate the validating software and join the ever-growing group of validating nodes.
Over $12 billion staked by 180,000 users
While stakers are staying near the minimum requirements, it is still highly encouraging to see just how many people are putting their money and trust in Ethereum 2.0, with more likely to join in due time, making the Ethereum network one of the most popular and most secure.
The Ethereum Foundation said that validators are the ones responsible for processing transactions, storing data, and, of course, creating new blocks that continue to be added to the ETH blockchain.
As some may remember, Ethereum 2.0 originally went online some seven months ago, in December 2020. However, in order for it to launch, users had to stake at least 524,288 ETH coins. At first, the response was very mild, and it seemed like the community simply wasn’t interested. However, after a few days, coins started entering the smart contract and the necessary amount was reached fairly quickly after that.
Six months later, the number of stakers has increased by 10x, reaching nearly 6 million ETH. The incoming milestone may have also affected the Ethereum price, which recently reclaimed $2,000. However, the more likely scenario is that the community is excited about the upcoming London hard fork, which is expected to come in July. With the prices at this level, the amount of staked Ethereum sits at approximately $12.29 billion, which came from the mentioned 18,000 stakers now acting as validators.
