The Ethereum Shapella upgrade has been an huge anticipated hard fork that the crypto community was looking forward to. In short, this upgrade of the Ethereum blockchain, where it has changed its consensus by splitting off a new one is very well characterized by the members of the Ethereum community as a historic milestone. The completing of Ethereum’s multi-year transition to a full Proof of Stake network was truly no smaller than that.
Diving in a little, a Proof of Stake system, the users usually stake their crypto asset as a form of guarantee which helps in securing and confirming new data blocks. Back in 2022, when the Ethereum blockchain upgraded itself from its original Proof of Work consensus mechanism, the users had been unable to withdraw their staked ether or redeem the accrued rewards. This very problem is the most crucial feature of the new Ethereum network we have today.
Fun Fact: Proof of Work is the mechanism that is used by Bitcoin!
In the livestream, that was hosted by Ethereum Cat Herders, the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain, Vitalik Buterin mentioned, “We’re in a stage where the hardest and fastest parts of the Ethereum protocol’s transition are basically over. Very significant things still need to be done, but those very significant things can be safely done at a slower pace.”
The next step after the Ethereum Shapella Upgrade will be tacking the issue of scalability; that is making the network faster and cheaper.
Additional Read: Ethereum Price Prediction 2023
Source: CoinDesk
