diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 46450000..ae78e9fe 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -15,8 +15,29 @@ For reference, the possible headings are:
 * **Fixed** for any bug fixes.
 * **Security** to invite users to upgrade in case of vulnerabilities.
 * **External Contributors** to list contributors outside of BigchainDB GmbH.
+* **Known Issues**
 * **Notes**
 
+## [2.0 Beta 1] - 2018-06-01
+
+Tag name: v2.0.0b1
+
+### Fixed
+
+* Fixed a bug that arose with some code that treated transactions-waiting-for-block-inclusion as if they were already stored in MongoDB (i.e. already in a block). [Pull request #2318](https://github.com/bigchaindb/bigchaindb/pull/2318)
+* If a user asked for a block and it happened to be an empty block, BigchainDB returned 404 Not Found, as if the block did not exist. Now it returns a 200 OK with a block containing no transactions, i.e. an empty block. [Pull request #2321](https://github.com/bigchaindb/bigchaindb/pull/2321)
+
+### Known Issues
+
+* An issue was found with the `bigchaindb upsert-validator` command. A solution was proposed in [BEP-19](https://github.com/bigchaindb/BEPs/pull/45) and is being implemented in [pull request #2314](https://github.com/bigchaindb/bigchaindb/pull/2314)
+* Some users are reporting that they sometimes lose the ability to post new transactions, but they can still retrieve existing transactions; see [issue #2322](https://github.com/bigchaindb/bigchaindb/pull/2322). It seems the issue may be with Tendermint; see [tendermint/tendermint#1642](https://github.com/tendermint/tendermint/issues/1642)
+
+### Notes
+
+* There's a [new docs page](https://docs.bigchaindb.com/projects/server/en/v2.0.0b1/simple-network-setup.html) about how to set up a network where each node uses a single virtual machine.
+* We checked, and BigchainDB 2.0 Beta 1 works with MongoDB 3.6 (and 3.4).
+* Support for RethinkDB is completely gone.
+
 ## [2.0 Alpha 6] - 2018-05-17
 
 Tag name: v2.0.0a6
diff --git a/bigchaindb/version.py b/bigchaindb/version.py
index c6e729e3..174d8004 100644
--- a/bigchaindb/version.py
+++ b/bigchaindb/version.py
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-__version__ = '2.0.0a6'
-__short_version__ = '2.0a6'
+__version__ = '2.0.0b1'
+__short_version__ = '2.0b1'
diff --git a/k8s/bigchaindb/bigchaindb-ss.yaml b/k8s/bigchaindb/bigchaindb-ss.yaml
index 1980cbfe..f1abd887 100644
--- a/k8s/bigchaindb/bigchaindb-ss.yaml
+++ b/k8s/bigchaindb/bigchaindb-ss.yaml
@@ -154,7 +154,7 @@ spec:
           timeoutSeconds: 15
       # BigchainDB container
       - name: bigchaindb
-        image: bigchaindb/bigchaindb:2.0.0-alpha6
+        image: bigchaindb/bigchaindb:2.0.0-beta1
         imagePullPolicy: Always
         args:
         - start
diff --git a/k8s/dev-setup/bigchaindb.yaml b/k8s/dev-setup/bigchaindb.yaml
index 7a1b2766..1ccd5af1 100644
--- a/k8s/dev-setup/bigchaindb.yaml
+++ b/k8s/dev-setup/bigchaindb.yaml
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@ spec:
       terminationGracePeriodSeconds: 10
       containers:
       - name: bigchaindb
-        image: bigchaindb/bigchaindb:2.0.0-alpha6
+        image: bigchaindb/bigchaindb:2.0.0-beta1
         imagePullPolicy: Always
         args:
         - start
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index a7ad8c78..07f97d1d 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ setup(
     zip_safe=False,
     python_requires='>=3.6',
     classifiers=[
-        'Development Status :: 3 - Alpha',
+        'Development Status :: 4 - Beta',
         'Intended Audience :: Developers',
         'Topic :: Database',
         'Topic :: Database :: Database Engines/Servers',