Ethereum developers continue working on the Shanghai upgrade.
On January 23rd, Ethereum (ETH) core developers launched Shanghai mainnet shadow fork.
The news was revealed on Twitter by Go-Ethereum developer Marius Van Der Wijden.
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“Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1” is designed to test the capabilities and conditions needed to complete staked Ether (stETH) withdrawals.
In general, mainnet shadow forks are system update rehearsals which allow developers to test and tweak various design flaws or significant issues.
In his Twitter thread, Van Der Wijden stated that the launch of the shadow fork started with a few issues. Initially, the configuration “wasn’t correctly applied on geth.” Geth is Ethereum’s getaway into the decentralized web.
However, the Go-Ethereum developer later revealed that all issues were fixed. The developer noted that all configurations are “applied correctly, and all nodes are in agreement.” According to Van Der Wijden, he and another developer named “Potuz” will attempt to "break" the upgrade.
Both developers will create malicious nodes, which will try to “spam invalid blocks/messages” and trick them into joining “the bad chain.” By doing so, developers are apparently testing whether malicious actors can make changes in the upgrade and whether any further changes need to be applied before launching the mainnet.
The new Shanghai upgrade is expected to see daylight in the next five to eight weeks. Ethereum core developers are eager to launch the stETH withdrawal capability as soon as possible. Based on some reports, the Shanghai upgrade will be ready for launch in March.
The highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade is set to allow staked Ether (stETH) withdrawals on the Ethereum ecosystem. Shanghai will be the first upgrade launched after, in September, Ethereum transitioned to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism.
It is worth noting that, in October, the Ethereum Foundation (EF) launched the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade testnet called Shandong. The testnet was used as a testing ground for various Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) issued by core Ethereum developers.
