Blog / Historical Archive

Beacon Chain Genesis (December 1, 2020)

Ethereum's proof-of-stake chain launched with the 32 ETH deposit contract.

Deposit contract threshold

The Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract went live on November 4, 2020, and genesis required 524,288 ETH, equal to 16,384 validators at 32 ETH each. The threshold was reached on November 23, and the Beacon Chain started on December 1, 2020, at 12:00:23 UTC.

Slots and epochs

The Beacon Chain produces a slot every 12 seconds and groups 32 slots into a 6.4-minute epoch. Validators attest each epoch, and a block becomes finalized after two epochs of supermajority votes, about 12.8 minutes.

Rewards and penalties

Early annual yield exceeded 15 percent because few validators were active; reward per validator falls roughly with the square root of total stake. Missing attestations costs a small penalty, while slashing for double-signing burns at least 1/32 of balance in the initial rules plus a correlation penalty.

Locked until Shapella

Staked ETH and rewards could not be withdrawn until the Shapella upgrade in April 2023. That illiquidity motivated liquid staking: Lido launched stETH on December 18, 2020, giving stakers a transferable token.

Why it mattered

The Beacon Chain ran in parallel with proof of work for 21 months before the Merge, giving consensus clients such as Prysm, Lighthouse, Teku and Nimbus time to harden before securing the entire network.

By the numbers

For Beacon Chain Genesis, the reference figures are genesis of December 1, 2020 12:00 UTC, deposit threshold of 524,288 ETH, validator stake of 32 ETH, withdrawals enabled of April 2023. The comparison table below lines up parameter, value — Genesis date: Dec 1, 2020; Genesis threshold: 524,288 ETH; Slot time: 12 s; Slots per epoch: 32; Stake per validator: 32 ETH.

Modeling Beacon Chain Genesis with the Ethereum 32 ETH Validator Yield Calculator

The Ethereum 32 ETH Validator Yield Calculator takes three inputs — Validators, APR (%), ETH price ($). Yield = validators × 32 ETH × APR × price. With its default inputs (Validators = 1; APR (%) = 3.2; ETH price ($) = 3000) it returns 3,072 $; swap in the figures from Beacon Chain Genesis above to reproduce the scenario yourself.

Modeling Beacon Chain Genesis with the Validator Slashing Downtime Penalty Estimator

The Validator Slashing Downtime Penalty Estimator takes three inputs — Stake ($), Slash (%), Downtime days. Loss = stake × slash + missed rewards. With its default inputs (Stake ($) = 32000; Slash (%) = 1; Downtime days = 2) it returns 325.26 $; swap in the figures from Beacon Chain Genesis above to reproduce the scenario yourself.

Data Table

For educational and informational purposes only. Not financial, investment, tax or legal advice. Figures are approximate and historical; crypto assets are volatile and you may lose capital. Do your own research.