The expected launch of the Shanghai hard fork has been delayed from late March to the first two weeks of April, according to Ethereum developers at a meeting on Thursday.
See related article: Ethereum’s Shanghai Mainnet moves one step closer as “Shadow Fork” goes live
Fast facts
- The Shanghai hard fork will be the first major upgrade since the “Merge” last September. A hard fork is a permanent split between a new blockchain and its latest version, often adding or fixing features of a network.
- The Shanghai fork will allow validators to withdraw their locked Ether for the first time since the staking feature went live in 2020. Over 17 million Ether (about US$26.7 billion) has since been staked.
- During the meeting, core developers agreed that the hard fork should occur at least two weeks after the “Goerli testnet launch,” which has been scheduled for March 14.
- The “Shanghai Capella” upgrade to Goerli, one of Ethereum’s popular testnets, will be the last chance for Ethereum clients and staking providers to ensure the Shanghai hard fork can go through smoothly when the final “mainnet” version launches.
- “So imagine Goerli happens on the 14th, everything goes well, and on the 16th, we agree to move forward with mainnet – I think the earliest that puts us is like the first week of April,” said Ethereum core developer and project coordinator Tim Beiko.
- Beiko noted in a Thursday Twitter thread that the Ethereum team did not explicitly agree to a mainnet date. Still, they will “probably” set a date during the next developers meeting slated for March 16, “assuming things go well on Goerli.”
See related article: Binance to hard fork BNB Smart Chain amid heated debate around decentralization