According to a discussion at the 151st Ethereum Core Developers Meeting on December 8, key programmers have set a tentative deadline of March 2023 for the Shanghai Ethereum hard fork. In addition, the developers will be targeting May or June 2023 to launch upgrade 4844 to the Ethereum Improvement Protocol (EIP) which will introduce proto-dankharding to the network.
Although the long-awaited Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Merge upgrade was completed on September 15, stacked ether (stETH) is currently locked on the Ethereum Beacon Chain. The decentralized financial protocol Lido creates the token, with nearly 3.5 million stETH ($4.48 billion) in circulation. After the Shanghai upgrade, STETH users will be able to withdraw their funds as well as pledge rewards applicable to validate network transactions. The Ethereum Foundation said it structured the upgrades this way to “simplify and maximize focus on a successful transition to Proof-of-Stake.”
After the hard fork, the EIP-4844 upgrade is designed to introduce a new data-blob transaction prototype previously created by the developers on February 21, 2022. Currently, Layer 2 technologies such as Optimistic Rollups can move to calculate and network off the Ethereum grid. storage to improve scalability 10 to 100 times. The developers predict that the capacity of the existing modules can be improved up to 100 times with the introduction of large portable modules that can hold cheaper data in Ethereum transactions. However, while the upgrade will reduce transaction fees on Layer 2 solutions, it will not affect transaction fees on Ethereum.
At @EthereumDenver we hacked together a complete data-blob-transaction prototype! (or mini-danksharding)
Data blobs are the first milestone towards ethereum’s full sharding, enabling good rollups @dóchasPBC to grow 100x capacity.
Here’s a tweet thread about the prototype
— proto.eth (@protolambda) February 20, 2022
We at @EthereumDenver have put together a full data-blob transaction prototype! (aka mini-danksharding) Data blobs are the first step towards full Ethereum sharding, allowing modules like @optimismPBC to multiply their capacity by 100. Here’s a thread of tweets about the prototype.- proto.eth (@protolambda) 20 February, 2022
Last December, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin said he wanted the blockchain to be a simple base layer, and for users to be “completely comfortable storing their assets in the ZK module, Zero Knowledge, running a full EVM , Ethereum Virtual Machine”. Buterin also warned that data availability segmentation and sampling are “complex technologies” and would take years of audits and fine-tuning to implement.
