Ethereum developers have announced that the network’s Shanghai Upgrade on the Sepolia testnet will be completed at the end of this month. The update is expected to have a big impact on ETH, the protocol’s native token.
In a blog post, the core blockchain development team highlighted that the Shanghai/Capella upgrade (Shapella) would be deployed on the Ethereum testnet Sepolia network at epoch 56832, which is projected to be on February 28, at 4.04.48 AM UTC.
What the Upgrade Means
The upgrade will allow validators to withdraw their funds from Beacon Chain to the execution layer. In addition, it will also introduce new functionality to consensus and execution layers.
The blog post also stated that the Zhejiang testnet, launched earlier this month, can be used to test the Shapella functionality prior to the Sepolia upgrade. Stakers and non-stakers operating nodes have been urged to upgrade their nodes to the recent Ethereum client version to benefit from the Sepolia upgrade.
Previously, the Ethereum developers encountered problems when testing Zhejiang. However, they later discovered some bugs that have since been handled and won’t affect the launch of other future updates.
The Shapella upgrade comes a little later than anticipated, as Ethereum’s lead engineer Barnabas Busa, initially announced that it would be deployed seven days after the Zhejiang testnet deployment on February 1.
ETH Price Analysis
As of this writing, Ethereum is changing hands for $1,599, down 2.1% in the past 24 hours. On the upside, ETH could hit the $1,805 mark before moving up toward $2,000. On the downside, the first support is predicted to be around the $1,465 mark, while the second is at the $1,360 mark.
Many crypto analysts expect the ETH price to go up when the Shapella upgrade is completed, just like after the Zhejiang testnest was deployed. However, the bullish rally will also depend on the wider crypto market and macro factors like the regulators’ ongoing crackdowns on crypto players.
It remains to be seen when the Shanghai hard fork will go live on the mainnet.
