Following the Merge in September 2022, Ethereum is planning to introduce meaningful improvements, such as making staked Ether available for withdrawal. Since the launch of the Beacon Chain in December 2020, which serves as a consensus layer for the Ethereum network, those seeking to become validators had to lock at least 32 ETH in the contract, meaning that roughly 10% of the total Ether supply is locked in the consensus layer deposit contract. The upcoming Shanghai upgrade is going to solve that problem. The Shanghai Upgrade is planned for the second half of 2023 – it’s been scheduled for March, and the expected outcome is a change in ETH coin price.
The Shanghai Upgrade is a long-overdue change to Ethereum’s proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Before the upgrade is deployed to the Ethereum Mainnet, developers have scheduled testnets. Sepolia is currently the second-largest testnet, providing users with a safe and secure environment for testing smart contract functions. Only authorized persons can run validator nodes on Sepolia’s new consensus layer. Please continue reading to discover the key features of Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade.
Ether owners can take part in the validation of the Ethereum network by staking their tokens, which helps maintain and secure the operation of the blockchain. After activating the validator node, the staker takes on responsibility for data storage, transaction processing, and the addition of new blocks. EIP-4895 is the primary focus in March, a feature that allows validators to withdraw their ETH from the Beacon Chain and further prepare for sharding. Roughly 16 million staked tokens will be available for withdrawalTo successfully unstake your ETH, set up a withdrawal credential using a mnemonic phrase that only you know.
Besides EIP-4895, there are several Ethereum improvement proposals in the hard fork, which will increase the popularity of the blockchain while also improving its security. The Shanghai and Capela (Shapella) hard fork will be initiated on the Sepolia testnet, introducing new functionality as far as execution and consensus is concerned. EIP-3651 will introduce the “Warm COINBASE” address to save gas fees, so accessing COINBASE will no longer be overpriced. In case you didn’t know, initial interactions cost more gas fees because the address needs to “warm” up. Once the address is warmed up, it costs less to access COINBASE. ETH developers are to activate the Shapella hard fork on Sepolia on February 28.
