Ethereum sees grand exodus with over $1b in pending withdrawals

The Ethereum Shanghai Capella update, or “Shapella,” has been completed successfully. This much-anticipated upgrade marks a massive milestone for the ethereum ecosystem, completing the famed move to a complete proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

Withdrawals following the upgrade

At 22:27 UTC, the upgrade began and was completed at around 22:42 UTC. About 285 withdrawals in epoch 194,408, valued at about $5,413 ETH ($10 million), were executed within half an hour of the upgrade going live. 

In the next four to five days, investors will get access to 1.2 million ETH tokens worth approximately $2.3 billion at the current price, per data from CoinMetrics.

Notably, one can only withdraw some 18 million ETH placed on the network at a time, as this has been limited. Over the next 18 months, only 1,350 full validators will be able to take out their interest each day. Because each validator bets 32 ETH, no more than 43,200 ETH, or $83 million at the current price, can enter the market daily.

Implications for ethereum

The Shapella problem showed how vital testing and security are when making blockchain systems. It also demonstrated some of the issues with ethereum’s current system, especially regarding scaling and the speed of transactions.

Also, the event depicted the strength of the ethereum community and its decentralized control model. The platform can have problems and get better over time, as demonstrated by how quickly the bug was fixed and how it was fixed.

Other improvements from the Shanghai upgrade

In addition to allowing withdrawals, the Shanghai upgrade includes other improvements, such as a base for conditional or cancelable payments, features that will reduce contract size and certain contract risks, and changes that will lower gas fees for developers. It also adds a function that lets validators who have already staked ETH on-chain take those tokens off-chain for the first time.

The next big update to ethereum will be called “Cancun.” It will include proto-dank sharding, a feature that aims to improve scaling by making fees and transaction times better. Even though the Shanghai upgrade was a big deal for ethereum, many important things still need to be done. However, ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin said that these important things could be done safely at a slower pace.