The successful testnet launch means that Ethereum is still scheduled to offer withdrawal features in five to eight weeks.
There has been a lot of talk about the upcoming Ethereum hard fork, also known as the Shanghai hard fork, likely scheduled for the end of February. This is the most discussed event currently in the crypto community as it will unlock $26 billion in ETH staked on the market.
On Monday, January 23, the core developers of Ethereum Announced the successful deployment of the first mainnet shadow fork designed to test the readiness of withdrawal capacity for ETH staking. Mainnet shadow forks basically represent a dress rehearsal for system updates. They allow developers to test for any design flaws or modify any outstanding issues. Thus, the test on Monday successfully previewed the next Ethereum Shanghai upgrade.
Since the historic Ethereum Merge event in September 2022, Shanghai will be the first major upgrade in the Ethereum ecosystem. The Merge event transitioned the Ethereum blockchain into a full proof-of-stake system. It allowed users to deposit ETH into the network and thus become validators to help authenticate on-chain transactions.
Since the launch of the Beacon Chain in December 2020, Ethereum (ETH) users have deposited $26.5 billion worth of ETH to earn staking rewards. However, with the implementation of the Shanghai update, users will be able to withdraw both their original deposits and newly minted ETH.
Marius Van Der Wijden, the core developer of Ethereum, announced on Monday that the shadow fork for Ethereum’s first withdrawal mainnet has launched successfully. Although there were some minor issues, they are fixed.
Retirement-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1 is ending 🚀🚀🚀
It started with some issues because the config was not applied correctly in geth (we don’t allow overriding the mainnet config). The settings are applied correctly and all nodes agree. We will start some evil nodes.
— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) January 23, 2023
Ethereum Shanghai Hardfork on schedule
The latest development means that the Ethereum network is still scheduled to offer withdrawal features in five to eight weeks. This timeline remains the top priority for the core developers of the network who were eager to offer ETH withdrawal capability as soon as possible.
Originally, the Shanghai update was likely to have bigger improvements, such as proto-danksharding and the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) EOF update. However, both updates have been postponed to ensure ETH withdrawals can debut in March 2023.
Last week, several core Ethereum developers expressed frustration at giving up the update to the coding method used to implement Shanghai. This was another sacrifice made by the developers to speed up the release in Shanghai.
JP Morgan analysts noted that the ability for ETH participants to withdraw funds “could usher in a new era of participation” for major cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase.
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Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and has a good knack for understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draws his attention to the new emerging markets of Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. He is continuously in a learning process and stays motivated by sharing the knowledge he has acquired. In his spare time, he reads thrillers and sometimes explores his culinary skills.
