The Block: Ethereum developers eye February public testnet for Shanghai upgrade

The planned Shanghai upgrade of the Ethereum network will focus exclusively on ether (ETH) withdrawals, according to a recent core developers call. Shanghai is an upgrade that will open validator staking withdrawals, a feature presently missing from the network.

With a planned launch of the upgraded mainnet sometime in March, users will be able to access coins that have been staked on the network. These coins became temporarily inaccessible as part of The Merge — when Ethereum transitioned to proof-of-stake consensus in September.

To ensure that developers are able to meet the March schedule, they aim to release a public test network for the Shanghai upgrade by the end of February, according to Christine Kim, a research associate at Galaxy who was on the call.

During the call, developers agreed not to consider adding Ethereum Virtual Machine Object Format (EOF) — a proposed improvement to the blockchain's EVM programming environment — amid concerns it could delay Shanghai. They agreed to prioritize the withdrawals feature over other potential code changes.

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