Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade goes live on the third & final Goerli testnet!

Around 4 am on March 15, Indian Standard Time, the Ethereum Shanghai-Capella Upgrade (also called Shapella) went live on the third and final testnet environment used by Ethereum, known as Goerli. It was the most anticipated testnet execution of the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade people were looking forward to. However, despite being executed, it wasn’t without a few problems.

Goerli forked!

— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) March 14, 2023

The Shapella Upgrade has on everyone’s minds in the crypto space especially because of the fact that it is the last test run, or rather a dress rehearsal before it is executed on the Ethereum mainnet where Ethereum’s PoS-based Beacon Chain validators will be able to withdraw their staked ETH after the staking began slightly more than two years ago back in December 2020.

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Goerli testnet execution of the Shanghai upgrade, however, wasn’t without a few issues. Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko noted that while deposits were being processed on the Goerli testnet, the process itself didn’t run as smoothly as they had expected. Beiko claimed this was because many testnet validators on Goerli did not upgrade their client software before the hard fork.

Deposits are being processed (https://t.co/CxYtPcGMCp), but it seems like several validators haven't upgraded. Looking into it 👀

One challenge with testnet validators is that given the ETH is worthless, there's less incentive to run a validator/monitor it.

— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) March 14, 2023

Tim went on to explain the reason behind the performance issues on the tesnet network, which mainly boiled down to the fact that there was no real financial value out of running a validator node on a testnet, as there is running it on a mainnet. Running a validator node generates a stream of revenue for validators but keeping it running on a testnet is effectively a cost they have to bear without any returns, thus the lower incentive. This makes Goerli’s ETH worthless, which is its intended purpose too.

According to Ethereum researcher Terence.eth, Goerli finalization took 15 epochs and thus caused some delays as the network participation was less than the two-third threshold. He mentioned that there was nothing wrong with the client software but rather the validator nodes hadn’t made the effort to upgrade their systems with the upgraded client software.

15 epochs later, Goerli has finalized.

There was nothing wrong with the Client software. We just had to get the offline operators to upgrade. It was a good stress test.

On to the next one. Mainnet! https://t.co/s573n5pC9f

— terence.eth (@terencechain) March 15, 2023

The Shanghai Capella Upgrade has been one of the most highly anticipated events in the crypto industry ever since the Ethereum Merge went live back on September 15, last year. This is because Shapella is expected to implement the Ethereum Improvement Proposal – EIP-4895, which will allow the unstaking of ETH tokens from the Beacon Chain for the first time since December 2020, when the PoS-based Beacon Chain was launched. This would bring the Ethereum network one step closer to a fully functional proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network.

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This, this hard fork is expected to allow partial and even full withdrawals and thus will theoretically unlock 17.6 million ETH, worth well over $30 billion as of writing this article, once the Shapella hard fork is executed.

With the Goerli testnet upgrade out of the way, up next is the final execution of the Shanghai-Capella Upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet, which is expected to take place in the month of April 2023. This was earlier slated to happen in the month of March itself but following a few delays during the Sepolia and Goerli testnet upgrades, the mainnet execution is now pushed tentatively to April.