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Ethereum Staking Queue Nears All-Time High Ahead Of Mainnet Merge

Ethereum is well on its way to the Merge as more milestones are met. The move to proof of stake will no doubt be a game-changer for the blockchain. So As the day for the merge draws closer, users of the network have been upping their activity in recent times. One of the places where Ethereum has recorded an uptick has been the staking queue which is now nearing its previous all-time high.

Ethereum Staking Queue Crosses 300,000

The Ethereum staking queue is a good indicator of how users of the network are looking at it. When this is low, investors may be more way and not want to stake their coins on the network. However, when this number begins to go up, it signals a number of things for Ethereum, among them, being that users are looking more positively at it.

Related Reading | TA: Bitcoin Holds Uptrend Support, What Could Trigger Sharp Decline

This queue has been going up in recent times and as of 17th March, has almost reached its previous high. It had previously touched a new high above 330K in June of 2021 when the bull rally had been in full bloom. But the subsequent market downtrend had seen this number come down with it going into the bear trend. Only to begin another recovery in August of the same year.

ETH price recovers above $3,900 | Source: ETHUSD on TradingView.com

As for 2022, the number had been steadily growing but hadn’t seen any significant boost. This boost came about two weeks into March when the number of wallets on the queue crossed 300K. It is the sharpest increase ever recorded by the Balance Validators Status.

What Does This Mean?

For a network like Ethereum, beating and setting new records aren’t a new thing. But like with any other thing, such high interest will definitely have an impact on the network and the price. In this case, the number of wallets that are now suitable to stake on the network is higher and are waiting to be activated to do so. When such a large amount of wallets are given the green light to start staking, it will take a good chunk of coins out of current circulation.

Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Consolidates Near $2,800, Why ETH Could Rally Again

This is because it takes 32 ETH for a wallet to be eligible to become a validator on the network. This means that when these wallets on the queue are activated, about 1 million ETH coins will be locked away for at least three months, which is the minimum staking duration for Ethereum.

A look at past charts shows that times like this have coincided with the increase in price for ETH. However, there has been one deviation which was during the November rally where ETH hit a new high above $4,000.

Nevertheless, with such volumes of ETH being temporarily taken out of circulation, it most likely will positively affect the value of the cryptocurrency, pushing the value towards previous highs.

Featured image from MARCA, chart from TradingView.com

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Binance Coin Dubbed “Winner Of 2021” By Crypto Research Firm

It’s official, this was Binance Coin’s year. There are no two ways about it, BNB crushed it throughout 2021 and cemented itself as the third more popular coin in the world by market capitalization. Not a small feat, considering the phenomenal year that altcoins had. Several projects had their moment in the sun, capturing capital, headlines, and attention. No one got near Binance Coin, though.

Binance Coin’s stellar performance | Source: The Weekly Update

According to Arcane Research’s The Weekly Update:

“Bitcoin may have beaten the stock market in 2021, but it has been left in the dust by other cryptocurrencies. Binance Coin (BNB) is the best performer of the three biggest cryptocurrencies by market cap, with a 1344% gain. The Binance Smart Chain ecosystem has seen massive growth in 2021, taking some market share from Ethereum.”

That’s why they dubbed Binance Coin as “the winner of 2021,” and their point is well taken. However, there’s more to the story. Binance as a company was in hot water for a while there. And their own validators blasted the Binance Smart Chain, saying things like, “There doesn’t appear to be any reasonable testing process in place. Every update appears to make things worse.”

Let’s explore the Binance Coin ecosystem’s tumultuous year.

Big Projects Decided To Operate On The Binance Smart Chain

There’s no denying it. As The Weekly Update says, “Ethereum has lost its indisputable position as the “one and only” smart contract platform.” And Binance has a lot to do with that. A controversial project from the start, the Binance Smart Chain has been dubbed a centralized Ethereum clone. And the critics have a point. However, even though the Binance team did fork Ethereum’s code, they were always upfront with the direction of the project. 

In BSC’s documentation, the team shamelessly claims that the “Binance Smart Chain uses a consensus model called Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA). (…) This consensus model can support a short block time and low fees, and it only requires 21 validators to run.” Contrast that with the 11.000 nodes that reportedly support the Ethereum ecosystem.  

However, their plan worked and projects flocked to it:

“Binance Smart Chain was developed explicitly to solve Ethereum’s rising gas fees and offers faster, scalable, and cheaper transactions. In the past, several alternative blockchains have tried to become ‘Ethereum Killers’ but couldn’t succeed in capturing new project’s interest. However, Binance Smart Chain is hosting numerous blockchain, Defi, and crypto projects.”

Problems And Connection To The Binance Coin

However, as in Ethereum’s case, success came with scalability problems. A set of validators took to GitHub to raise concerns about the state of the network and how running a complete node’s cost has increased tremendously.  “There is no code review, patches are simply committed, in most cases even without a proper description of what they do or what problem they try to solve,” the original poster said. 

“I’ve rarely seen something handled so unprofessionally,” the OP accused. “I have many full nodes running there and now all of them are unable to sync. Each of these servers costs me $800 per month (previously only $200), then you told me that I need faster bandwidth and disk which means the cost will keep rising,” a commenter claimed. 

What does this have to do with the Binance Coin? Everything. As the native currency of the Binance ecosystem, BNB’s success is tied to the success of the whole network. Binance is still doing amazing, but, can Binance Coin holders count on that to be the case in 2022?

BNB price chart for 12/29/2021 on Binance US | Source: BNB/USD on TradingView.com
Make No Mistake, Binance Coin Won 2021

It was an action-packed year, but Binance Coin rose to the test. Besides the validators uprising, the Binance team took care of these flash loan hacks and kept BNB’s price rising throughout the year. When CZ himself called for other entrepreneurs to create their own coins, NewsBTC was the voice of reason:

“Binance is not only the biggest exchange in the world; it also has the most activities, features, things to do. BNB powers all of that. How many coins support that huge of an ecosystem? How many coins have that many use cases? And yes, BNB provides its user with superpowers while in the Binance ecosystem and helps them save money. How many other coins can do something similar?”

Let’s not kid ourselves, the Binance Coin AKA BNB is a unicorn. A one-of-a-kind project that did many things right and rewarded the early believers with a phenomenal year. A 1344% increase in price is not something we see every day. Congratulations to Binance Coin for owning 2021.

Featured Image: Foundry on Pixabay | Charts by TradingView & The Weekly Update