• Ethereum developers are planning to release the Shanghai upgrade in public testnet by the end of February.
• The upgrade will prioritize enabling withdrawals of staked Ether and is scheduled for March.
• Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) related to EOF and other proposed changes were dropped from the upgrade.
Ethereum developers are getting ready for the public testnet launch of the Shanghai upgrade, scheduled for February and March, respectively. This was revealed by Christine Kim, a research associate at the financial services and investment management company Galaxy Digital. According to her, the developers are prioritizing enabling withdrawals of staked Ether (ETH) and are cutting out any code changes that could potentially delay the time target.
During the first All Core Developers Call (ACDC) of 2023, which Kim took part in, developers reaffirmed their commitment to strive for an early February launch of the public Shanghai testnets. As a result, they decided to drop certain Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) related to the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) Object Format (EOF), despite ongoing testing of its code. Additionally, other proposed changes, such as EIP 5843 and EIP 5988 proposed by Ethereum foundation developer Jared Wasinger and StarkWare developer Amir Moradi, respectively, have been postponed.
The Shanghai upgrade, also known as EVM 2.0, is expected to introduce significant changes to the code execution environment of Ethereum. The developers are now focusing on ensuring a timely release of the upgrade as well as its successful implementation on the mainnet.