Top crypto exchange Coinbase is moving ahead with its Ethereum 2.0 staking service, as the exchange taps into one of the crypto industry's hottest trends.

Yesterday, the San Francisco-based exchange announced the launch of a waitlist for its Ethereum 2.0 staking service, allowing interested parties to reserve a slot.

In an official blog post, Coinbase explained that the waiting list would allow interested stalkers to put down a portion of their ETH into its upcoming staking service. They stand to earn 7.5 percent per annum in staking rewards – although when the exchange's 25 percent commission is considered, stakers will get considerably less.

Coinbase first announced support for Ethereum 2.0 staking last November. In a blog post at the time, the exchange claimed that all staked ETH2 tokens would remain locked on its Beacon Chain. However, the exchange will allow trading between ETH, ETH2, and other supported assets.

For now, the exchange doesn't have a timeline for when the stalking will be live. However, it remains positive that its offering will benefit users. Besides staking, Coinbase will allow trading for all staked ETH – an essential feature since all staked assets will be locked until the launch of Ethereum 2.0's first phase sometime next year.

It's also worth noting that the staking waitlist isn't available for New York residents yet. For now, it's unclear if the exchange plans to liaise with regulators to bring the service to the state before its staking service launches.

Ethereum 2.0 staking has continued to thrive, drawing significant numbers as anticipation for the network upgrade itself grows. Despite launching less than three months ago, Ethereum 2.0 has drawn significant commitments as investors get attracted to its annual percentage yields. Data from Staking Rewards shows that the asset ranks fifth among cryptocurrencies by staked volume, with $5.18 billion locked in staking services.

While it could catch Algorand (ALGO) and its $5.45 billion in staked assets, Ethereum 2.0 has some work to break into the top three – occupied by Polkadot (DOT) ($19.36 billion), Cardano (ADA) ($19.25 billion), and Avalanche (AVAX) ($10.25 billion).

As for the network upgrade itself, work appears to be moving along nicely. On Monday, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a plan for Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain's first hard fork, tentatively named HF1. The planned hard fork will allow developers to implement several upgrades to the Beacon Chain, which itself launched recently.

Per the plan, a major change comes in the form of support for light clients – nodes with minimal resource requirements that can also run on mobile phones. Support for them will allow the new blockchain to launch “trust-minimized wallets” that can verify on their own, as opposed to relying on external service providers.

For now, it remains unclear when the full hard fork will be implemented. The entire overhaul still requires extensive review. However, the progress has been encouraging.

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