Ethereum Upcoming Hard Fork Will Allow Staked ETH Withdrawals In March 2023

Shanghai hard fork will permit staked (ETH) withdrawal from the Beacon Chain and is planned to launch in March 2023. After that, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4844, a second hard fork, happened.

On October 14, 2022, the Ethereum Foundation released a pre-Shanghai testnet in preparation for the launch. Before being made available as part of the official Shanghai Update, the Ethereum Improvement Proposals [EIPs], often known as “Shandong,” will undergo testing and polishing on this testnet.

Core developers have created a possible time frame of March 2023 for Ethereum’s Shanghai hard fork. According to talks during the 151st Ethereum Core Developers Meeting on December 8. 

In addition, the Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) 4844 upgrade, which would bring proto-danksharding to the network, will also be introduced in May or June 2023, as per engineers.

Developers decided to delay EOF until the autumn if it appears too difficult to deploy by the next All Core Developers call scheduled for January 5 to avoid delaying staked ETH withdrawals.

The Beacon Chain is presently closed for Staked Ether (stETH) Users that staked Ethereum before the Merge will be able to withdraw their cash as well as any additional rewards after the update is finished.

The stETH token was developed by Lido, a decentralized financial system, and there are around 3.5 million in use, with a market cap of about $4.48 billion.

Moreover, developers are proposing a second hard fork in the third quarter of 2023 that will bring “proto-danksharding,” or EIP 4844, as a follow-up to the Shanghai hard fork. 

Additionally, EIP 4844 is a crucial step in “sharding” the network, which improves capacity and lowers transaction costs.

Shard blob transactions, a new payment structure by EIP 4844, will enable Ethereum nodes to store and retrieve off-chain data.

Ethereum First Merge “proof-of-stake”

According to the Bellatrix upgrade, a so-called “hard fork,” which will change Eth from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) basis, marked the start of the first phase of the Merge upgrade on September 6.  

Ethereum will transition from the very energy-intensive PoW strategy to the PoS model. Although they function differently, both systems are utilized to validate transactions and tack on new blocks to the chain.

Although the proof-of-stake Merge update was completed on September 15, staked (stETH) is still locked on the Ethereum Beacon Chain.

The Ethereum blockchain formerly relied on proof-of-work, a consensus process that demands a significant amount of computing labour from each decentralized node involved in the network.

The Eth blockchain’s operation is fundamentally altered by the proof-of-stake algorithm. Since staked ETH and validators now protect the network, there is no longer a need to mine new blocks.

On December 1, 2020, Ethereum introduced a distinct proof-of-stake chain called Beacon Chain. Alongside the main Ethe blockchain, it was operating concurrently.