Ethereum developers have set March 2023 as a tentative time frame for the Shanghai Upgrade.
The upgrade will include a slew of significant enhancements and fundamental changes.
The Shanghai upgrade will include EIP-4895, which will enable withdrawals of staked ETH.
The Shanghai Upgrade is taking place prior to the Surge upgrade.
ETH roadmap, highlighting "The Surge" as the next major upgrade to the ETH network.
However, in the all Core Developers meeting on December 8, 2022, Ethereum developers agreed to release the planned Shanghai upgrade in March 2023 prior to the Surge Upgrade. The team noted that the upgrade will prioritize the enabling of staking withdrawals, which is crucial before proceeding with the Surge Upgrade.
So, before we go into why developers opted for the Shanghai Upgrade over the Surge upgrade, let's first understand what the Shanghai Upgrade is and what changes it will bring to the ETH network.
After the successful completion of the Ethereum Merge on September 15, 2022, the Shanghai upgrade, formally known as Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4895, is set to provide a slew of significant improvements and fundamental modifications to Ethereum's EVM functionality.
In addition, the Shanghai upgrade is a forerunner to a scalability improvement that would increase network transaction throughput. It will allow validators to withdraw their staked Ethereum from the Beacon Chain consensus layer.
Meanwhile, the developers also discussed the inclusion of EIP-4844 in the Shanghai Upgrade, which will introduce a new transaction type called blobs that will hold cheaper data.
Developer Peter Szilagyi advised against integrating EIP-4844 in the upgrade without appropriate planning. Another developer stated that writing wrong code that is closely connected to the system is costly to remove later on. Most developers decided that implementing withdrawals was the top priority, and EIP-4844 was pushed to the next upgrade.
However, as per recent information from the core developers, the update is scheduled for March 2023.
The move is significant because The Surge, which was supposed to be a part of Shanghai, is expected to help Ethereum execute financial transactions faster by altering how the blockchain manages its workload.
The Shanghai Upgrade will also prioritize the enabling of staking withdrawals, which is crucial before advancing with the Surge Upgrade.
Meanwhile, the Surge, which aims to increase transaction processing capacity via sharding, is scheduled to take place between 2023 and 2023. The Ethereum community believes that this will be one of the most prominent upgrades to the Ethereum network because it will include “SHARDING” in the ETH network.
The Shanghai Upgrade may include a few EIPs, but this does not imply that the upgrade is insignificant. The upgrade will eventually boost network performance and maybe cut gas fees, which are both necessary upgrades for the Ethereum network.
Meanwhile, the next ETH core developers meeting is scheduled for January 19, which will further disclose details about the Shanghai Upgrade. Till then stay tuned with CoinGabbar for more crypto-related updates.
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