Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrade Finally Completed

The upgrade on Ethereum blockchain, also known as “Shapella” was finalized on 12 April, and the network is now processing withdrawal requests.

Ethereum’s Shanghai hard fork, also referred to as Shapella upgrade, has been finalized, enabling withdrawals for users who have “staked” their ether (ETH) to secure and validate transactions on the blockchain.

The Shapella upgrade was triggered at 22:27 UTC, and finalized at about 22:42 UTC.

Roughly half an hour after the Shanghai upgrade was activated, some 285 withdrawals in epoch 194,408 had been processed, for about 5,413 ETH ($10 million worth), according to beaconcha.in.

The much anticipated hard fork – essentially upgrading the blockchain by splitting off a new one – has been characterized by members of the Ethereum community as a historic milestone, completing its multi-year transition to a full proof-of-stake network.

In a proof-of-stake system, users “stake” cryptocurrency as a form of guarantee to help secure and confirm new data blocks. Last year, the blockchain left behind its original proof-of-work consensus mechanism – the same one the Bitcoin uses – but until now users had been unable to withdraw their staked ether or redeem accrued rewards, a crucial feature of the new paradigm.

The price of ETH remained largely flat at the time the Shanghai hard fork was triggered, while about 4000 people tuned into a Shapella Mainnet Watch Party hosted by Ethereum Cat Herders.

At the livestream, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, said that “we’re in a stage where the hardest and fastest parts of the Ethereum protocol’s transition are basically over. Very significant things still need to be done, but those very significant things can be safely done at a slower pace.”

Buterin said that scaling – making transactions faster and cheaper – will be the next issue that the blockchain tackles after Shanghai. “If we don’t fix scaling before the next bull run, we know people are going to be stuck paying $500 transactions. If, on the other hand, we don’t have Verkle Trees before the next bull run, well, things might might suck, but you know, it’s a much smaller problem than, you know, $500 transactions, right?”

Crypto market analysts have speculated for months whether the Shanghai upgrade would be a catalyst for either a price rally or a collapse: Will its success boost market sentiment, or will stakers redeem their ETH en masse and rush to sell off their holdings?

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