The Ethereum Network has undergone an upgrade called Ethereum 2.0, which increases the network’s speed, effectiveness, and scalability. As a result, the Ethereum network will be able to handle far more transactions, which will reduce congestion and expensive gas prices.
The Shanghai upgrade’s public test net debut is scheduled for February, according to Ethereum developers. Christine Kim, a research associate at the financial services and investment management firm Galaxy Digital, reported this.
The test net will go live before the Mainnet deployment of the Shanghai upgrade, which is slated to happen in March, according to Kim’s study report for Galaxy. She took part in the inaugural All Core Developers Call (ACDC) for 2023, during which Ethereum developers made this choice.
According to her, “Developers confirmed their resolve to attempt to target early February for the launch of public Shanghai testnets.”
The research associate at the company with a blockchain and cryptocurrency emphasis noted that the upgrade would only give priority to making it possible to withdraw staked ETH. Based on this, the developers are removing any suggested code modifications that would cause the time objective to slip.
According to Kim, the developers decided to abandon any Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) associated with EOF as a result. The EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) Object Format is called EOF.
The Ethereum code execution environment is expected to undergo several changes due to the update, termed EVM 2.0. Testing of its code is still going on despite its removal from Shanghai.
The creators did the same with other improvements that were being considered. These include EIPs 5843 and 5988, which were put out by developers Jared Wasinger of the Ethereum foundation and Abdelhmaid Bakhta of StarkWare, respectively.
The introduction of SSZ, an updated and more contemporary serialisation standard for encoding structured data, was also proposed but postponed.
Reaction Of The Market To Unlocking Staked Ethereum
Market commentators have expressed alarm about the possibility that the Shanghai upgrade may send the price of ETH into a wild spiral. The update would allow ETH stakers to withdraw the tokens and prizes they have staked.
Since the PoS Beacon chain debuted in 2020, some stakers won’t be able to access their tokens until the Shanghai upgrade. Currently, about $20 billion is invested in about 15 million ETH. These stakeholders could be willing to sell their tokens, putting sell-side pressure on ETH and lowering its price.
Some experts have also suggested that Shanghai, which is the first significant upgrade since the Merge update, might increase the price of ETH. The Ethereum blockchain was converted from a proof-of-work (PoW) network, which required a lot of energy, to a proof-of-stake network through the Merge update.
Before the update, ETH’s price also increased. Optimistic experts also predict that making staked ETH withdrawals possible would, over time, pull in more players, including institutions, who will stake ETH to gain interest. ETH is currently up 4.73 per cent in the last 24 hours, trading at over $1,300.