Ethereum core developers set April 12 for Shanghai hard fork
A target date for the highly anticipated Shanghai hard fork has now been set: April 12. Ethereum core developers approved the target deadline during the All Core Developers Execution Layer #157 call on March 16.
Initially estimated for late March, the Shanghai mainnet upgrade features five Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), including EIP-4985, which will enable staked Ether (ETH) withdrawals on the Beacon Chain, completing Ethereum's transition from proof-of-work (PoW) to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus.
The target date April 12 at 10:27:35 PM UTC, epoch 620,9536, will now be confirmed by developers on GitHub. The fork was initially forecasted for March, but developers later pushed it back to early April.
6209536 4/12/2023, 10:27:35 PM UTC
Validators will receive rewards payments automatically at periodic intervals in withdrawal addresses. Additionally, stakers can exit positions entirely, reclaiming their entire balance.
According to Etherscan, Ethereum PoS smart contract has attracted over 17.6 million ETH, worth nearly $29.4 billion at the publication time. Analysts predict that the upgrade could trigger a sell-off in the short term, Cointelegraph reported.
The transition to PoS officially started on Sep. 15, 2022 with The Merge, in a significant milestone for the Ethereum network by replacing miners for validators, and introducing ETH staking as a key component for the network. Ethereum’s roadmap has several updates coming after Shanghai, known as the “Surge,” “Verge,” “Purge” and “Splurge.”
The switch for a PoS consensus could have regulatory implications for ETH and the crypto space. Last September, United States Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler suggested that the blockchain’s transition
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