Major Ethereum Announcement: ‘Sepolia Shapella’ Scheduled

Major Ethereum Announcement: ‘Sepolia Shapella’ Scheduled Major Ethereum Announcement: ‘Sepolia Shapella’ Scheduled

Ethereum core developer Tim Beriko announced on February 22 the most awaited upgrade after the Merge. The anticipated Ethereum Shanghai upgrade is moving closer to enabling withdrawals of staked Ethereum. The Sepolia Shapella upgrade is scheduled for February 28 at 4 AM UTC. 

According to the Ethereum Foundation, the name ‘Shapella’ is a combination of Shanghai, the location of Devcon 2, and Capella, the brightest star in the northern constellation of Auriga. It will introduce new functions on the consensus and execution layers of Ethereum. 

All staking and non-staking nodes have to update to the latest version to run operation post-Shapella Sepolia launch. However, this upgrade will allow the validators to withdraw staked Ethereum on the Beacon Chain, but the full staked withdrawal will be accessible after the Shanghai upgrade.  

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The Ethereum users and ETH holders do not need to worry about the upgrade, but developers should understand how the newly introduced system works.   

Earlier, Ethereum client’s found bugs in the test network, but developers believe it will not affect the scheduled Sepolia upgrade in February. After this upgrade, developers plan to launch Shanghai upgrade on the Ethereum Goerli testnet in early March.  

How Sepolia and Shanghai Impact the ETH? 

One of the main reasons why Ethereum prices were going down in 2022-2023 is the recessionary phase of the world economy and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes. On the other hand, decentralized applications, NFTs, and other science-backed blockchain ecosystems have been thriving in the market, and investors are interested in the future potential of such technologies. As a result, there will be a huge demand for ETH coins.

During 2020-2021, ETH provided massive returns to investors. Based on the projections for the ETH future price, it will be a great asset for investment. According to the Ethereum price prediction, ETH price will be between a range of $1800-$2000 in 2023. 

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However, if the U.S. Fed does not hike the interest rate in the second half of 2024, the ETH price will shoot up to $3500. Crypto enthusiasts expect an even better opportunity in 2025 with a price range between $3000-$4500.