Coinbase, Binance and OKEx Announce Ethereum 2.0 BETH

Three of the biggest crypto exchanges have announced that ethereans staking with them will receive what some are calling an eth bond where one eth is one beth.

“Till ETH2.0 launches transfer feature, you will be able to redeem any staked ETH for BETH in a 1:1 ratio. Redemption will be determined based only on the amount of BETH you have available at the time, and is unrelated to the amount that you initially staked or exchanged,” Binance said in announcing ethereum 2.0 staking services.

The statement above suggests you receive normal eth instead of staking eth for your beth, with it unclear who exactly keeps the staking eth.

Presumably it would be Binance itself, the exchange, in which case where are they getting this eth they’re giving for beth as the staking eth is locked.

They could well buy it on the market, so taking liability risks, but OKEx interestingly has announced they are to launch a beth trading pair.

“OKEx will open BETH trading once it has finished an evaluation of the staking system,” they say.

While Coinbase announced prior to eth2 going live that there will be a market for eth/eth2 trading, stating:

“While staked ETH2 tokens remain locked on the beacon chain, Coinbase will also enable trading between ETH2, ETH, and all other supported currencies providing liquidity for our customers.”

Coinbase gives almost no detail but Binance and OKEx refer to what OKEx calls “a token that is anchored to the on-chain staked asset,” but neither explains how exactly it is anchored or what is the address of this token or how Binance and OKEx agree on just which one is the beth token.

Both however say the 5% to 20% staking yield will be given, presumably after they take the fees, but since this Binance and OKEx beth can freely exchange hands, it’s not clear how OKEx or Binance will know just which is their beth to give the yield.

OKEx for its part suggests the reward will be in USDt, while Binance says it will be in beth:

“Yield will be calculated based on the number of staked tokens on-chain and lock up times, and will be issued in BETH,” Binance says.

All of it suggesting the rewards will be issued only to the beth held on their own exchange, as otherwise it’s not clear how they’d know which on-chain beth is theirs and which some other exchange’s.

However, if they spruce up the details in a workable manner all this suggests anyone can enter and leave ethereum staking at will with these services to launch later this month.

In addition the speculative element of beth/eth seems to be cancelled by the fact they can be redeemed at one to one. If one way, then there wouldn’t be any easy way to arbitrage, while a two way conversion should keep the two assets at the same value with the exchanges suggesting the latter.

It would be at roughly the same value however as one would have to account for slashing and the like, making this eth bond a very complex matter.

But one can stake for as low as 0.1 eth in these services, and since you get beth you can leave at any time, removing one of the biggest concern of prospective stakers in regards to the unknown lock up time.

Meaning ethereum staking will soon become a lot more liquid and if these exchanges show a proper execution of these eth bonded beth, we may well start to see arbitraging and yield farming between defi and staking which should change the game considerably.