Ethereum takes step closer to Shanghai-Capella with deployment on Sepolia testnet
Quick Take
- Ethereum core developers have deployed the Shanghai-Capella on the Sepolia testnet.
- The next step for developers will be to deploy the upgrade on the Goerli testnet as a final dress rehearsal.
Ethereum developers have successfully launched the Shanghai-Capella upgrade on the Sepolia testnet, marking another step towards its mainnet release next month.
At around 4:04 a.m. UTC, Ethereum core developers triggered the upgrade at epoch 56832, which took approximately 13 minutes to finalize. The Sepolia test network is one of three testnets on which the Shanghai-Capella upgrade, also called Shapella, is being tested. Its deployment is seen as a milestone towards the upgrade's full launch on the mainnet in March.
With today's launch, developers have successfully replicated the main feature of the Shapella upgrade — which is named Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895 — on Sepolia. This proposal aims to enable validator staking withdrawals on the network.
During Ethereum's transition to proof-of-stake consensus in September 2022, also known as The Merge, ETH withdrawals from validators were not enabled. Now, that is set to change.
Developers have finalized three additional improvements aimed at optimizing gas costs for certain activities, in addition to enabling validator withdrawals, through the Shapella upgrade.
Multiple phases of public testing for Shapella have been planned by developers, and the Sepolia testnet is the second public testnet to deploy the upgrade, following the earlier simulation on the Zhejiang testnet this month.
The next step for developers will be to deploy Shapella on the Goerli testnet in early March, which will serve as the final dress rehearsal before the mainnet launch.
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