Breaking: Ethereum Reveals Details On Shanghai’s Sepolia Shapella Upgrade

With the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade anticipated for March, the most-awaited upgrade after the Merge, developers are moving closer to the goal to enable withdrawals of Ethereum staked on the Beacon chain.

Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko on February 22 announced that the Sepolia Shapella upgrade is scheduled for February 28 at 4 AM UTC.

According to a blog by Ethereum Foundation, the Shapella (Shanghai/Capella) network upgrade will be activated on the Sepolia testnet at block height 56832, which is expected at 04:04:48 UTC on February 28.

The upgrade will enable validators to withdraw their Ethereum staked on the Beacon Chain to the execution layer. It will also introduce new functions to both the execution and consensus layers. Full Ethereum staked withdrawal capability will be available with the Shanghai upgrade.

The Shapella upgrade introduces changes to the execution layer (Shanghai), consensus layer (Capella), and the Engine API. Ethereum users or ETH holders don’t have to upgrade anything. However, stakers and non-staking node operators are required to upgrade nodes to Ethereum client releases for the Sepolia upgrade.

Ethereum’s core developers earlier found bugs related to the public test network Shapella. Ethereum’s largest client Go Ethereum (Geth) nodes faced difficulty syncing with the Zhejiang testnet. Other clients also reported the same issue. However, developers believed that the issue will not impact the Sepolia upgrade scheduled on February 28.

Previously, developers stated that after the upgrade of the Sepolia test network, the plan is to release the Shanghai upgrade on the Ethereum Goerli test network. It is most likely to happen in early March.

Ethereum Price Fall Ahead of the Upgrade

Ethereum price fell over 2% in the last 24 hours, with the ETH price currently trading at $1,636. The 24-hour low and high are $1,632 and $1,709, respectively.

Bitcoin and Ethereum prices are under pressure ahead of the U.S. FOMC Minutes release. Traders expect hawkish Fed comments due to recent hawkish rhetoric expressed by some Fed officials.

Crypto influencer Lark Davis recently warned that withdrawals will cause a significant sell-off in the crypto market and further disrupt the ETH bullish narrative.