• Ethereum core developers have agreed to push the Shanghai/Capella (also dubbed ‚Shapella‘) upgrade to early April.
• The much-anticipated phased withdrawal of Ether (ETH) from the Beacon Chain will be part of the testing.
• The upgrade is expected to retain a bullish momentum for ETH with as volatility points accrued due to ETH staking likely decreases.
Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade Pushed To Early April
Ethereum’s core developers have agreed to push the Shanghai/Capella (also dubbed ‚Shapella‘) upgrade to early April in their latest All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) call just yesterday, March 2. Originally slated for the end of March, project lead Tim Beiko announced that the mainnet launch for the Shanghai upgrade will be pushed a further two more weeks at the earliest in order to give node operators time to upgrade their clients.
Successful Sepolia Testnet
He has also noted the success of the Shanghai upgrade on the testnet Sepolia tested last Tuesday, February 28. The Sepolia testnet is a network with limited functions that only allowed for the operation of validator nodes.
Goerli Testnet Next Step
The next step is to deploy the upgrade on the Goerli testnet, a test network allowing for more varied functions such as the testing of smart contracts and decentralized applications. More specifically, the much-anticipated phased withdrawal of Ether (ETH) from the Beacon Chain will be part of this testing. The Goerli test is slated for March 14, 2023 and Beiko has announced another ACDE call on March 16, where they would „probably“ set date of mainnet launch assuming things go smoothly.
Transition From PoW To PoS Mechanism
The Shanghai Upgrade is much-anticipated upgrade (and thus a hard fork) following The Merge that completed Ethereum’s transition from a proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanism. This upgrade will allow validators finally withdraw their staked ETH which have been stored from as far back as December 2020 when consensus layer was deployed.
Increase Transactions Speeds & Lower Gas Fees
Other anticipated upgrades are focused on increasing transactions speeds and lowering gas fees resulting in bullish momentum for ETH and benefit liquidity staking platforms immensely due decrease in volatility points accrued because ETH staking would likely decrease.
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