A deposit contract is a smart contract on the Ethereum Execution Layer (formerly Ethereum 1.0) that allows a user to deposit 32 ether (ETH) into the node to create a validator node on the Ethereum network—a node that contributes to network consensus and block creation. The deposit contract for the Ethereum Consensus Layer (previously Ethereum 2.0) went live on November 4th, 2020, and users had until November 24th to stake their 32 ETH. To fulfill the 32 ETH obligation, this launch required at least 16,384 individual users.
A Home for All Things DeFi