Ethereum developers chose March 14 as the scheduled launch date for the Shanghai hard fork on Goerli – the final testnet for this long-awaited ETH staking unlocking upgrade. If all goes well, Shanghai will be on the Ethereum mainnet in mid-April.
Previously, the Ethereum team decided to choose March 2023 as the time to launch the Shanghai hard fork. However, the network needs to go through the full range of Sepolia, Zhejiang, and Goerli testnets. Each testnet was spaced 3 weeks apart. Therefore, Shanghai will be pushed to early April.
The Shanghai hard fork is a major milestone that will bring many changes to the Ethereum network. Shanghai, also known as “Shapella” by the ETH development team, is the next upgrade in the predetermined roadmap after The Merge. One of the key proposals on the Shanghai hard fork is EIP-4895, which unlocks the huge amount of staked ETH for Ethereum 2.0.