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All eyes have been on Bitcoin recently and its record-breaking price rise, but Ethereum has quietly been making its own milestones.

The Bitcoin effect on the rest of the crypto markets cannot be denied, and Ethereum is also at a high. Not an all-time high, but it reached its highest price since May 2018, topping $650 in early trading in Asia on December 17.

The 10% overnight surge in Ethereum prices has pushed the value of it staked on the Beacon Chain to almost a billion dollars.

There is 1.52 million ETH staked on the Beacon Chain at the time of writing. At the current price of $645, this equates to $983 million. It will not be long before the billion dollar milestone is reached either due to the increasing price of Ethereum, or an increasing amount of the asset staked for ETH 2.0.

The ETH 2.0 Launchpad is currently reporting an annual percentage yield of 12.7% for those that have staked so far. This will decrease over time as more ETH is locked up to secure the network. With 5 million ETH staked, the APY falls to 7% and when there is 10 million ETH locked up, earnings are 4.9%.

This may not sound like a lot, but compared to traditional banks which are offering zero or negative interest rates, it is practically free earnings on an asset that has increased in value by almost 400% this year alone.

Ethereum is increasingly being held and used as an investment vehicle in order to generate better yields than any fiat currency can offer. The amount of it locked in DeFi is a testament to that as it has increased by 145% since the beginning of the year.

According to DeFi Pulse, there is currently 7.1 million ETH, or 6.2% of the entire supply, locked across various protocols. The record ETH lockup was 9.3 million on October 21, but it is likely that some of this has been withdrawn for staking purposes.

As Bitcoin retreats from its new all-time high of $22,400, Ethereum was also cooling off a little from its peak of $660. (However, it has surged once again this morning to $674.) It is likely to continue mirroring big brothers moves in the short-term, with the main difference being that ETH is still 54% down from its ATH whereas BTC has surged 11.5% above its.

Analyst and trader Altcoin Sherpa observed that Ethereum has started its rallies in December the past three times, predicting a surge to four figures in 2021.

For more cryptocurrency news, check out the Altcoin Buzz YouTube channel.

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Almost $1 Billion in Ethereum Staked on Beacon Chain - Altcoin Buzz