Ethereum coders reached consensus on Shanghai update

Summary:

• Ethereum developers had their weekly call to discuss what features should roll out in the next hard fork.
• Marius Van Der Wijden said coders were already working toward staked Ether withdrawals prior to the call.
• Developers will proceed with around eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals for Shanghai, the next technological upgrade.
• The timeline for the upgrade was unclear at press time.

Developers at the Ethereum foundation talked on Thursday and decided on eight proposals to explore for Shanghai, the next upgrade after moving to proof-of-stake. The Shanghai hard fork included unlocking staked Ether (ETH) and allowing stakers to withdraw their assets. 

As reported, a multiclient devnet was released on Wednesday to trial staked validator ETH withdrawals. Developers already agreed to push forward with building staked ETH withdrawals before Thursday’s meeting, tweets from Marius Van Der Wijden hinted on Wednesday. 

EIP 4844 was among the eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP) agreed on. The EIP centers around better scaling by leveraging proto-danksharding technology. Ideally, this tech will boost network throughput and slash transaction fees. Proto-danksharding sections a blockchain into “shards” to achieve this. 

Five EIPs focus on upgrading Ethereum Virtual Machine, the staging area where smart contract codes are deployed. The EVM proposals include EIP 3540, EIP 3670, EIP 4200, EIP 4570, and EIP 5450. 

When Shanghai on Ethereum?

Indeed, developers reached consensus on eight EIPs to build for the Shanghai hard fork. Not all eight EIPs might ship with the final upgrade expected in the second half of 2023. Also, ETH coders did not finalize a timeline for staked Ether withdrawals.