Ethereum’s Shapella Upgrade for Staked ETH withdrawals Coming April 12

Summary:

• Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko confirmed that the anticipated Shapella upgrade will happen on April 12.
• The Shanghai-Capella update on the mainnet will enable the withdraw function for staked ETH and unlock around 16 million stETH, developers have said.
• Liquid staking provider Lido Finance could unlock withdrawals later in mid-May due to audit delays and testing on Goerli.

The Shanghai-Capella upgrade meant to unlock staked Ether (stETH) and enable withdrawals for stakers will roll out on Ethereum’s mainnet come April 12, core developer Tim Beiko confirmed to the crypto community on Tuesday.

Beiko’s thread on a timeline for the upgrade said the developers will activate Shapella at epoch 194048 at 10:27:35 PM UTC this April. This update will unlock over 16 million ETH, around 20% of Ether’s supply, locked up by validators and stakers since 2020.

The Shapella upgrade as it’s known, a witty mix of Shanghai and Capella, is perhaps Ethereum’s most important upgrade since The Merge back in September 2022. Indeed, The Merge switched ETH’s blockchain from a proof-of-work consensus model to proof-of-stake, replacing miners with stakers and charting a new energy-efficient course for crypto’s second-largest blockchain.

Since The Merge, Ethereum’s token supply has seen a deflationary state at least twice, and validators on the network increased significantly to over 500,000. These validators perform similar tasks as miners, confirming PoS blocks, transactions and contributing to network security.

Lido Delays Ethereum Mainnet Launch

Lido Finance, a liquid staking provider that currently dominates the ETH staking scene with around 30% market share, announced a delay in enabling stETH withdrawals. The protocol started testing stETH withdrawals on the Goerli public testnet on Mar 20, roughly a week later than initially planned.

Lido shared that the delay was caused by seven audits for its V2 mainnet launch, which the protocol said will align with Ethereum’s upgrade and bolster security on the liquid staking platform. The protocol plans to leverage an additional two-week safety margin and enable stETH withdrawals by mid-May.