Eight Proposals for the Upcoming Hardfork in Ethereum to be Considered by Developers — Shanghai Upgrade
Following a thorough discussion on the Ethereum Upgrade on November 24, 2022, the project’s developers chose to take into account eight Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) for the network’s forthcoming Shanghai hardfork. This hard fork may include ideas to solve the issue of scalability as well as others aimed at enhancing the EVM, or Ethereum Virtual Machine. It is anticipated that this hard fork would enable the Beacon Chain staked ETH withdrawals.
The main point to keep in mind is that a timeline for the upgrade has not yet been agreed upon.
A list of EIPs that were added to the CFI list or “considering for inclusion” was presented at the meeting’s conclusion. Some suggestions, like as EIP 4895, were chosen for inclusion in the Shanghai Upgrade timeline and were unquestionably going to be included in the fork. EIP 4895 essentially involves releasing the ETH that had been staked prior to the Ethereum Merge.
The Beacon Chain smart contract now allows users who had locked up 32 ETH or more in the days before to the Ethereum Merge to finally unstake and withdraw their tokens if they so want, along with any further accumulated rewards that the validator may be entitled to.
As previously indicated, the majority of these EIPs currently fall under the CFI category, so although developers may commit to working on them and running them on developer testnets, there is no assurance that they will ultimately be accepted for inclusion in Shanghai.
Therefore, it is uncertain when the development and upgrades will be made. The Ethereum Foundation had stated that staked ETH would be released 6 to 12 months after the Merge.
Another proposal, EIP 4844, also known as proto-danksharding, is also included in the CFI package, and even Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has spoken about it on Twitter. EIP 4844 is a significant first step for Ethereum because it would implement a technique called sharding, which divides the network into smaller units in an effort to increase network capacity and lower gas costs.
A different group of EIPs that are intended to improve the Ethereum Virtual Machine have also been accepted into the CFI category. EIP 3540, EIP 3670, EIP 4200, EIP 4570, and EIP 5450 are the EIPs that will upgrade the Ethereum Virtual Machine, according to the CoinDesk report. By ensuring that certain requirements are met, these modifications are intended to make the execution of smart contracts safer.
One of the most recent proposals still under consideration is EIP 2537, which would add “BLS precompile.” This proposal seeks to increase the number of cryptographic proofs in Ethereum and improve compatibility with the PoS Beacon Chain.
