Shanghai Upgrade comes closer as Ethereum Devs prepare for Shapella Upgrade on Zheijang Testnet!

Key Takeaways

• Ethereum platform is about to proceed with the next milestone ahead of the Shanghai hard fork and release the testnet at Epoch 1350
• A successful release may trigger a launch on the Sepolia testnet following also on Goerli soon
• The upcoming release is considered important as the withdrawals from the ETH 2.0 contract address may be enabled soon

Additional Read: Ethereum Price Prediction

A lead developer of the Ethereum Foundation, Tim Beiko confirms the release of ‘Shapella’ transition through the Zhejiang Public testnet on Feb 07, 2023. The developer also said that the Sepolia testnet may also follow in the next 2 days on Feb 09, which may be followed by the Goerli testnet. Beiko announced the major update ahead of the Shanghai hard fork which still has no specific date to occur. 

‘Be ready for the Shapella Tuesday’ says the developer and also urged the validators to obtain 33 ETH from the faucet of the testnet. 

We wrapped up another @ethereum #ACDE today! Covered the steps to Shapella testnets, lots of 4844 specs discussion, and the path to SSZing the EL.

Agenda: https://t.co/DK8F3qyRfT
Stream: https://t.co/gJE5DKkYfN

Recap below 😄 https://t.co/XA7XJKx8nz

— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) February 2, 2023

The word Shapella is derived from ‘Shanghai and Capella that represents 2 planned improvements that may ease the process of withdrawing the stake ETH on the execution layer and the Beacon chain at the same time. The testnet also has a blockchain explorer and a staking launchpad. 

Further, if the testnet is released without any bugs or major flaws, it could be further moved to the public testnet in the next 2 days.

“Assuming the Zhejiang fork goes well, they would be ready to move to public testnets, and in what order. We quickly agreed that Sepolia should be first, as the validator set is similar than Goerli,”

The scheduled testnet is designed to identify bugs before the Shapella transition on the Zhejiang testnet which could be moved to the mainnet in March. The real-time loopholes could be analyzed without risking the funds. The Ethereum community may get enough time before the Goreli testnet to develop tools and documentation for the Shanghai Mainnet launch as the Seoplia testnet will be released before Goerli.

The Development of Ethereum 2.0 was kicked off many years ago but went live with the release of the Beacon Chain back in December 2020. The validators have to stake 32 ETH to accumulate the required ETH to trigger the transition from Proof-of-Work or Proof-of-Stake consensus in August 2022. These staked ETH which has been marking new highs on the ETH 2.0 smart contract were locked over the period of 2 years which could be withdrawn with the impending testnet release. 

Read More: Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade

Ethereum has barely displayed any impact on its price as the second-largest crypto has been following the market sentiments deeply instead of the fundamental upgrades. However, after the successful release validators are believed to withdraw a large amount of ETH which may flood in the market. This could induce significant volatility that may further impact the price regardless of the direction soon.