Ethereum Shanghai: Mainnet Shadow Fork Now Deployed, Developers Confirm

This shadow fork will be used to test if the upgraded blockchain is capable of allowing the withdrawal of ETH, staked on the network.

Written by Radhika Parashar, Edited by Siddharth Suvarna | Updated: 24 January 2023 16:44 IST

Ethereum Shanghai: Mainnet Shadow Fork Now Deployed, Developers Confirm

Photo Credit: Unsplash/ Shubham Dhiman

Ethereum completed its last major upgrade called the Merge last year

Highlights

The shadow fork did see some glitches, Ethereum developer said
This shadow mainnet will be under observation for the days to come
The Shanghai update is around six to eight weeks away from being deployed

Ethereum blockchain is set to get the functionality of letting stakers withdraw their tokens with its upcoming Shanghai update. The shadow mainnet for this upgrade has been successfully deployed, developers working on it confirmed on January 23. This shadow fork will be used to test if the upgraded blockchain is capable of allowing the withdrawal of ETH, staked on the network. The upgrade is slated to go live in full force around March this year.

Before making the upgrade live, developers need to be sure that it is free from any bugs or glitches that could affect its operations upon final deployment and that is where this shadow fork will come-in handy.

Ethereum developer who goes by the Twitter handle of @vdWijden, confirmed the development while also revealing that the shadow fork did encounter some technical snags.

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Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1 is finalizing :rocket::rocket::rocket:

It started out with a few issues because the config wasn't correctly applied on geth (we disallow overriding the mainnet config). The config is applied correctly and all nodes are in agreement. We will start some evil nodes,.
— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) January 23, 2023

Last year, the Ethereum blockchain transitioned from its proof-of-work (PoW) mining model to the energy-efficient proof-of-stake (PoS) model. The name of this revamped network is Merge.

In PoS, blockchain validators stake their personal Ether tokens to create new blocks and verify transactions. In return, stakers get interest and other rewards on their staked tokens.

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It is estimated that $22.38 billion (roughly Rs. 1,82,520 crore) worth of Ether tokens are currently staked on the blockchain.

Once the Shanghai upgrade goes live, it will allow Ethereum validators to choose if they want to keep their tokens staked or withdraw them.

Ethereum developers are reportedly looking to launch a public testnet for the Shanghai update in February.

In the coming months, the blockchain will continue to get upgrades to address key challenges.

Earlier this week, Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum said that ‘stealth addresses' could be a potential solution that could safeguard all the information that is saved on Ethereum, which is a public blockchain. These stealth addresses can add anonymity to the peer-to-peer transactions of digital assets.

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Further reading: Cryptocurrency, Ethereum, Blockchain, Shanghai

Radhika Parashar

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Radhika Parashar is a senior correspondent for Gadgets 360. She has been reporting on tech and telecom for the last three years now and will be focussing on writing about all things crypto. Besides this, she is a major sitcom nerd and often replies in Chandler Bing and Michael Scott references. For tips or queries you could reach out to her at RadhikaP@ndtv.com. More