The Ethereum blockchain is about to undergo a significant upgrade known as “Shapella” on April 12, 2023. This upgrade will combine the Shanghai and Capella validator changes, and it aims to enable staking validators to withdraw their staked Ethereum for the first time. Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) #4895 specifies that validators can withdraw their funds subject to specific thresholds built into the rules, such as 1,800 validator cap per day. There are also two types of withdrawals: partial and full. Partial withdrawals apply to those with a valid withdrawal address and excess funds earned from validating or staking, while full withdrawals enable validators to remove the entire 32 ETH required to stake and exit the validator system completely.
While this hard fork will not affect most users, validators must upgrade their clients. The Ethereum Foundation has provided all the necessary information about the upgrade in a blog post. Ethereum's market share of USD volume recently hit its lowest levels since March 2021, according to research from analysts at Kaiko. Ethereum’s spot volumes have struggled to maintain pace with Bitcoin’s ahead of the Shapella upgrade.
The Shapella upgrade follows The Merge and will enable validators to withdraw their stake from the Beacon chain back to the execution layer. It also introduces new functionality to both the execution and consensus layer. On Tuesday, the day before the Shapella upgrade, the price of Ethereum (ETH) rose by 2.9% over the last day. In the past 30 days, Ethereum has increased by 29.9% against the U.S. dollar. Presently, the crypto asset’s overall valuation of $230.7 billion represents 17.9% of the crypto economy’s value, which is currently at $1.28 trillion.
As the crypto community eagerly awaits the Shapella upgrade, it is clear that the hard fork will be a significant milestone for Ethereum. With the ability to withdraw staked Ethereum, validators will have greater flexibility and control over their funds, which could result in a positive impact on the network’s overall security and decentralization. Moreover, the introduction of new functionality to both the execution and consensus layer could also lead to increased innovation on the platform.
