The Shanghai update will be rolled out on the Ethereum mainnet on April 12 as a hard fork, after being tested on the Goerli testnet. This update will allow ETH holders stuck on the Beacon Chain to withdraw their ETH through the EIP-4985 withdrawal feature.
Shanghai arrives on the Ethereum mainnet on April 12
Following its deployment on the Goerli testnet, the Shanghai update will arrive by the end of the morning of April 12, according to the last developers’ meeting that agreed on this date. This crucial update, which will be done in the form of a hard fork, will allow people who have blocked their Ethers (ETH) to withdraw them from the Beacon Chain.
This withdrawal feature, which will be rolled out as EIP-4985, will be accompanied by 4 other EIPs, including EIP-3651 aimed at reducing transaction fees in certain specific use cases. This is the most important update since the Merge last September, as more than 17.7 million ETH will be put back into circulation. Shanghai will thus sign the total transition of Ethereum to the proof-of-stake (PoS) method.
As we reported earlier, a rather small number of Ether holders on the Beacon Chain would like to withdraw and sell their ETH. In fact, the vast majority of them would rather store them again.
The update will normally be deployed at epoch 620 9536, which is approximately 11:30 a.m. during the day on April 12.
Tim Beiko is also confident about the deployment of Shanghai on the Ethereum mainnet following some problems encountered on the Goerli testnet recently.
Indeed, these were mainly due to some validators who had not updated their client. A problem that should logically not happen on the mainnet, as the validators have real Ethers at stake this time.