It is now confirmed: the Shanghai update will be implemented on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain testnet next month and will be live on the mainnet in March. This highly anticipated update from Ethereum blockchain users will allow them to withdraw their staked ETH when The Merge arrived last September.
Shanghai update set for March
The long-awaited Shanghai update should therefore be implemented on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain for the month of March 2022, according to the developers in charge of the project.
In order to respect this schedule, Ethereum developers have agreed to prioritize the introduction of the Ether withdrawal functionality. Indeed, the latter is particularly expected from blockchain users who staked their assets before the launch of The Merge update last September, since they are currently unable to use them freely.
During their meeting on January 5, the developers in charge of the evolution of the network also made it known that a set of EIPs grouped under the name EVM Object Format (EOF), which could potentially be deployed during the upgrade Shanghai day, would ultimately be postponed. According to them, an additional month of work would have been necessary to be done, which would have mechanically postponed the release date of the update at least in April.
This EOF, which will therefore bring together several simultaneous developments for Ethereum, aims to simplify future updates of the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and to better differentiate the code and data of smart contracts transiting on the blockchain.
The rest of the timeline for Ethereum
As we said before, once the Shanghai update is live on the mainnet, the next big step will be the introduction of the EOF, which will change the way contracts will be managed on the blockchain.
Then, it is the EIP-4844 that should focus the attention of developers, also eagerly awaited by the Ethereum community. More commonly known as “Proto-danksharding”, this feature essentially aims to solve the congestion of the Ethereum network by changing the transaction structure of the blockchain.
According to the developers present at the call, this feature still requires considerable work from the teams in charge of the development of the blockchain, and it is for this reason that it will be deployed later although priority on the list of EIP to come.
The order of priority is not unanimous, however, since Péter Szilágyi, the team leader of the Ethereum Foundation, notably argued that the Ether withdrawal functionality is less important than the EIP-4844 as “it brought nothing to Ethereum” from a technical point of view.
However, the latter is popular with users who have blocked their pre-merger ETH and are therefore waiting to recover it. Some observers fear significant selling pressure will cause the price of ETH to fall, but it should be noted that today’s price ($1300) is significantly lower than the date of the Merge ($1600).
More than 20 billion dollars will have to be released during the Shanghai update since around 15.9 million Ethers are currently staked on Ethereum.
TechAint 