The Shapella hard fork has officially been executed on the Ethereum Mainnet – which means Ethereum validators can finally withdraw their staked ETH from the Beacon Chain.
The long-awaited update went into effect at 10:27 PM UTC on April 12 at issue 194,048.
In the first 20 minutes of the hard fork, a total of 3,355 Ether were unlocked from 1,101 withdrawals, according to Ethereum block explorer beaconchai.in.
Currently, about 44% of the validators, that is, 244,603 of the total of 562,572 assets, can request partial or total withdrawals.
Most of the withdrawals at the moment are between 2.8 and 3.2 ETH, which suggests that it is mainly the rewards that are being withdrawn at the moment.
The Ethereum Shapella upgrade has been activated and withdrawals are processing! pic.twitter.com/Krly5GB2K7
— eric.eth (@econoar) April 12, 2023
Through the Ethereum Improvement Proposal, EIP-4895, the ETH locked in staking was moved from the Beacon Chain to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) also known as the execution layer, making withdrawals possible.
This is the most important update since The Merge on September 15 and brings Ethereum one step closer to a fully functional proof-of-stake system.
Ethereum proof-of-stake chain has upgraded to Shapella. Withdrawal is now enabled
This closes the loop of the original beacon chain design. Validator can deposit -> withdrawal.
— terence.eth (@terencechain) April 12, 2023
The hard fork can theoretically unlock 18.1 million Ether, which currently equates to more than $34.8 billion.
However, there are various mechanisms in place to prevent a flood of ETH from reaching the market, according to the Ethereum Foundation.
The Ethereum Foundation organized an official watch party for the Shapella hard fork.
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