Ethereum developers plan Shapella hard fork on April 12

The Ethereum has determined the date for the Shanghai-Capella (Shapella) hard fork on the mainnet. The long-awaited update is scheduled for April 12 (epoch 194 048).

The upgrade envisages the implementation of EIP-4895 — an improvement proposal for the mainnet that would allow users to withdraw funds from staking.

Several updates are also planned, aimed at optimising gas costs.

Earlier, on March 15, the Ethereum team conducted the Shapella hard fork on the Goerli testnet.

Before that, developers activated this upgrade on the Sepolia testnet. The hard fork includes changes to Ethereum’s consensus and execution layers. Its primary aim is to enable withdrawals of ETH from staking.