Ethereum researchers released version 1.0 of the Eth2 specifications on November 4, 2020, published the canonical mainnet deposit-contract address and opened the mainnet Launchpad for prospective validators. The release transformed Ethereum’s proposed proof-of-stake system from a test-network project into a process involving real ether and an explicit, although conditional, route to Beacon Chain genesis.
The Ethereum Foundation identified the contract as `0x00000000219ab540356cBB839Cbe05303d7705Fa`. Its announcement set the minimum genesis time at December 1, 2020 at 12:00 UTC, but that timestamp was not an unconditional launch commitment. Genesis at that time required at least 16,384 validator deposits of 32 ETH each no later than seven days beforehand. If the threshold was missed, genesis would occur seven days after the minimum was eventually reached.
A capital-backed readiness test
The required total of 524,288 ETH is a calculation—16,384 multiplied by 32 ETH—not a measurement of funds deposited on November 4. The records reviewed for this reconstruction do not establish a single authoritative, time-stamped event-day balance, so no claim is made about how much ETH had entered the contract by a particular hour.
The threshold made the next protocol milestone dependent on more than software publication. Prospective validators had to commit capital, generate credentials, select and operate compatible client software, and accept the possibility of rewards or penalties after genesis. The Phase 0 design treated deposits as the mechanism for enrolling validators in the Beacon Chain’s proof-of-stake consensus.
That made November 4 institutionally significant even though it was not the completion of Ethereum’s transition away from mining. It created a public coordination test involving developers, infrastructure providers, custodians and ETH holders. Participants could assess whether finalized specifications, multiple client implementations and operational tooling were mature enough to support a network secured by deposited assets rather than a testnet faucet.
What Phase 0 did—and did not do
The contemporaneous Phase 0 description was narrower than the shorthand “Ethereum 2.0 launch” suggested. Ethereum’s existing proof-of-work chain and its applications were not replaced on November 4. The Beacon Chain was designed to begin as a parallel proof-of-stake system focused on consensus and the validator registry.
The specification stated that Phase 0 did not include ETH transfers, shard chains or smart-contract execution on the Beacon Chain. The deposit contract was a one-directional technical link from the existing Ethereum mainnet into the new validator system. Validators faced software, key-management, uptime and slashing risks, while the initial inability to move deposited funds back through an ordinary Phase 0 withdrawal path reduced liquidity.
Those limitations matter for the market reading. Opening deposits could affect how some holders allocated ETH, but it did not by itself prove demand for staking, remove ETH permanently from circulation or establish that the December 1 condition would be met. This reconstruction makes no price or percentage-return claim because the protocol release does not establish market causation, and no consistent event-day exchange, index, cutoff time or measurement window was selected.
What remained uncertain on November 4
As of November 4, the key unknown was collective participation: whether enough valid deposits would arrive in time for the earliest genesis date. Client reliability under production conditions, validator concentration and the performance of the new consensus system also remained untested with mainnet value at stake. The v1.0 release labeled the Phase 0 deposit contract stable, but that designation did not eliminate operational or economic risk.
Later context
Ethereum’s later institutional timeline records that the Beacon Chain began producing blocks on December 1, 2020 at 12:00:23 UTC. That outcome confirms the subsequent milestone; it does not retrofit certainty into what was still a conditional launch process on November 4.
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