Ethereum testnet successfully forks in Shanghai upgrade rehearsal

The Ethereum blockchain's Sepolia testnet has undergone a successful upgrade that simulates the upcoming Shanghai hard fork that is expected to take place in March on the network's mainnet.

The "Shapella" upgrade, which combines the names of the upcoming Shanghai and Capella hard forks, was successfully implemented on the testnet on Feb. 28.

Sepolia testnet has successfully upgraded to Shapella! Some of the Prsym validators are offline due to the old geth version. They will come online in the next 10 mins!Next stop: Goerli pic.twitter.com/pb43Gq7w9C

Shanghai is the fork’s name on the execution layer client side and Capella is the upgrade name on the consensus layer client side. One of the major changes enables validators to withdraw their staked Ether (stETH) from the Beacon Chain back to the execution layer amongst other new functionalities.

Related: Lido Finance activates staking rate limit after more than 150,000 ETH staked

Validators needed to stake 32 Ether (ETH) to validate the Ethereum blockchain. They will now be able to withdraw rewards in excess of 32 ETH and be permitted to keep validating and those who wish to fully withdrawal can take all 32 ETH plus rewards and cease validating.

The next step before the Shanghai fork goes live on the mainnet will be to release the upgrade on the Ethereum Goerli testnet which is expected to commence in March.