- Ethereum’s next network upgrade will be live on testnet next week.
- After the upgrade, validators will be able to withdraw for the first time.
- There are over $27 billion stacked funds on the Ethereum contract.
The Ethereum blockchain has officially confirmed the date of the next major network upgrade after the transition to proof-of-stake. According to an official blog post published on Tuesday, Sepolia Shapella (Shanghai/Capella) network upgrade will be live on the testnet on February 28.
In the blog, the upgrade, which is said to be activated next Tuesday at 4 AM UTC, will enable validators to withdraw their Ethereum staked on the Beacon Chain to the execution layer. It also introduces new functionality to the execution layer (Shanghai) and consensus layer (Capella).
The blog also informs that the validators will be able to stop running their nodes, exit the network, unlock their 32 Ether, and any earned rewards after the Shapella update.
Furthermore, there are two phases to the withdrawal. The partial withdrawal phase, which takes one week on average, allows balances over 32 ETH, or $52,500, earned rewards to be moved out, while the validator remains a part of the beacon chain, as expected.
According to data from Etherscan, the Ethereum Beacon Chain staking contract holds nearly 17 million units of ETH tokens. The over $16.8 million staked ETH token is equivalent to over $27.6 billion, over 13% of the coin’s market cap.
Notably, the Shapella update combines changes to the execution layer, consensus layer, and the Engine API. Furthermore, validators are advised to be especially mindful of the risks of running a majority client on both the execution and consensus layer when choosing which client to run. While a staker running a minority client will only lose moderate amounts, a majority client can incur a total loss, according to the warning article.
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