[Update] Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade Set to Launch on April 13

The highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade for the Ethereum network, which will enable the withdrawal of staked ETH, is officially scheduled for April 2023.

Shanghai Upgrade Scheduled for April

Update on March 29:

On the evening of March 28, the Ethereum Foundation team confirmed the launch date for the Shanghai upgrade. According to the blog post, the Shapella hard fork will take place at 05:27:35 AM UTC on April 13, 2023, at epoch 194048.

It's happening ?

Shapella is scheduled on mainnet for epoch 194048, scheduled for 22:27:35 UTC on Apr. 12, 2023 ?

Client releases compatible with the upgrade are listed in the announcement below ?https://t.co/I0hSv9lnjz— timbeiko.eth ☀️ (@TimBeiko) March 28, 2023

Update on March 16, 2023:

After successful testing of Shanghai on the Goerli testnet on March 14, Ethereum developer Tim Beiko confirmed that the upgrade enabling ETH staking withdrawals is set for April 12, 2023, at around 05:27 PM UTC.

6209536 4/12/2023, 10:27:35 PM UTC

— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) March 16, 2023

Original Post:

Ethereum developers initially targeted March 14 for the Shanghai hard fork to launch on the Goerli testnet, marking the final dress rehearsal for the eagerly awaited upgrade that will unlock staked ETH. If successful, Shanghai is expected to go live on Ethereum’s mainnet in mid-April.

If the launch of Shanghai on Goerli goes over smoothly, Ethereum stakeholders can expect a mainnet launch of the upgrade during the 2nd week of April.

— Christine Kim (@christine_dkim) March 2, 2023

Previously, the Ethereum team planned to deploy the Shanghai hard fork in March 2023. However, the network needed to complete testing on Sepolia, Zhejiang, and Goerli testnets, each spaced three weeks apart. Consequently, Shanghai has been rescheduled for April, as Coin68 anticipated.

The Shanghai hard fork represents a major milestone, introducing significant changes to the Ethereum network. Known internally as “Shapella,” this upgrade follows The Merge and includes key proposals like EIP-4895, which aims to unlock a substantial amount of ETH staked for Ethereum 2.0 as part of The Merge.

Following Ethereum's transition from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), transactions are validated by users who stake ETH to earn rewards. Since the launch of ETH 2.0 staking contracts in December 2020, over 17.5 million ETH has been locked, representing approximately 14.5% of the total circulating ETH.

ETH Locked in Ethereum 2.0 Staking Contracts. Source: Beaconcha.in

According to Decrypt, many investors have chosen to stake their ETH on intermediary staking platforms such as Lido and exchanges like Coinbase, Kraken, and Binance. These four entities offer staking services and provide passive rewards to customers. Dune Analytics data shows that ETH staked across these four platforms accounts for 56% of the total ETH staked on the network.

Despite the progress, Ethereum's core developers are focusing all their efforts on Shanghai. The team has even postponed other network improvements and avoided minor technical adjustments to ensure the upgrade proceeds as planned.

Earlier this week, the Sepolia testnet successfully implemented the Shanghai