Developers at the Ethereum Foundation have decided on eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) to be explored for the Shanghai Update, the next major update after The Merge and its move to proof-of-stake consensus, the foundation announced Nov. 24.
In a weekly call, the developers decided which features should be included in the next hard fork, which will be released in the second half of 2023. According to the foundation’s JavaScript team on Twitter:
We are happy to announce the launch of an early Pre-Shanghai testnet we are calling “Shandong”. https://t.co/1HpFTPUMOU
This is an experimental testnet run in cooperation with EF DevOps which activates a set of selected Shanghai-considered EIPs for early client testing.
: https://t.co/VJ4kWxupG3
—EF JavaScript Team (@EFJavaScript) October 14, 2022
One of the main features expected in the Shanghai update, the Ether (ETH) locked in the Beacon Chain, will be unlocked, allowing assets to be withdrawn with the update, which means that users with Ethereum staked before The Merge will be able to access those tokens, as well as any other rewards. A previous date anticipated that the locked ETH would be accessible between 6 and 12 months after The Merge.
Among the approved proposals is EIP 4844, which focuses on leveraging proto-danksharding technology, and is expected to increase network performance and reduce transaction rates, a significant improvement for scalability. Other EIPs address updating Ethereum virtual machines, including the EIP 3540, EIP 3670, EIP 4200, EIP 4570, and EIP 5450.
The Shanghai testnet version, dubbed Shandong, went live on October 18, allowing developers to work on implementations like the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) object format, is one of the most anticipated updates. by the community as the encoding of the data is separated, which could be beneficial for on-chain validators.
As Cointelegraph previously reported, The Merge was the first step in this five-part process, which has since been crafted by a number of Ethereum developers, ecosystem participants, and commentators. The key change from The Merge is the drastic reduction in power consumption, which should reduce Ethereum’s power usage by 99%.
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