Jihan Wu’s Matrixport Launches ETH 2.0 Staking Offering 

Jihan Wu’s company has joined the league of platforms offering users a way to earn yields from their Ethereum 2.0 (ETH 2.0) lock-up as rewards and mining revenues.

Singapore-based Matrixport, Wu’s second adventure after leaving as the co-founder of mining chip company Bitmain Technologies, was recently valued at over US$1 billion in its two years of providing one-stop crypto financial services with over $5 billion in average monthly trading volumes.

Earlier this month, the company announced it closed a Series C $129 million fundraising round with plans to continue its global expansion and to secure licenses to operate in more jurisdictions.

Its venture into the ETH 2.0 space, the series of interconnected upgrades meant to enhance scalability, security, and sustainability of the Ethereum network, is part of the company’s effort to “bring to market innovative offerings that benefit the long tail of crypto users,” according to its co-founder and CEO, John Ge.

Ge adds that while Ethereum’s transition to Proof of Stake (PoS) is an important milestone for the ecosystem, the barrier to meaningfully participate in ETH 2.0 staking pools is still high for many hence their introduction of the ETH 2.0 staking offer.

https://twitter.com/realMatrixport/status/1430380205596717058 

A minimum of 5 ETH is required to participate in Matrixport’s staking offer to earn higher annualised yields of up to 10% on locked assets. 

ETH 2.0 is the next stage for the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap as it transitions from a Proof of Work to Proof of Stake consensus protocol in the next two years. 

In the past week, GlassNode noted that the total ETH held on exchange balances hit an all-time-low. CryptoQuant shares that ETH exchange reserve supply has decreased by 3.4 million (from 21.4 million in May 2021 to 19 million this week) in a trend that started in 2020 when roughly 1 million ETH gets taken off from exchanges every month. 

At the same time, ETH 2.0 staking has reportedly hit new highs. As of last week, blockchain explorer website Etherscan puts ETH 2.0 as the top account by balance with 6.9 million ETH ($21.3 billion worth). CryptoQuant supports the claim with a note that 2.2 million more ETH had been locked in ETH 2.0 staking in the last three months with a sharp increase in ETH staked after the London Upgrade (EIP1559) earlier this month. 

Since the London upgrade, the Ethereum network has burned 95,534.88 ETH or $301 mln as at this writing. In the meantime, ETH’s value has surged by about 75% since July 22 till last weekend. Skew by Coinbase puts the current market value of Ethereum at about 41% of Bitcoin’s, a double when compared to its start of the year value.

Pyrmont – a large public testnet – upgraded last week on the Ethereum network and it is being put through the ringer as a number of test scenarios are run on the soon-to-be-deprecated testnet. The Prater upgrade is scheduled for September 2. 

The Pyrmont testnet seeks to be the launchpad that offers the easiest way to go through a step-by-step process to deposit the 32 ETH to become Ethereum 2.0 validator.

Matrixport considers its ETH2.0 Staking Earn offer as a first of its kind. It says the offer enables customers to participate with a low threshold, earn yield from Ethereum lock-up rewards and benefit from additional token rewards, mining revenues, and better liquidity from related DeFi projects at the same time.