Ethereum developers announced that they are moving forward with a crucial software upgrade that would allow users to withdraw Ether coins needed to run the blockchain network during their first online meeting of the year.
The update is anticipated to go live in March, the developers had stated in December. A number of important features that many developers wanted to add to the Shanghai update are being deferred in order to enable token withdrawals as soon as feasible.
“We should probably be just removing stuff at this point,”
on the conversation that was streamed on YouTube, Tim Beiko, who oversees Ethereum developers, remarked.
Shanghai would primarily offer the ability for users whose tokens are used to order network transactions to withdraw their money. According to data tracker Beaconcha.in, about 15.83 million Ether, worth close to $20 billion at the time of writing, are now being stored in specialized wallets known as "staking wallets" and their owners are unable to extract the currency. Owners of tokens are compensated with fees for directing transactions.
Shanghai comes after the Merge update, which enabled the network to use staked currencies rather than power-hungry computers to arrange transactions in September. The modification, which was labeled the most ambitious software upgrade in the history of blockchain technology, reduced Ethereum's power usage by roughly 99%.
While the price of Ether increased for many months before to the Merge, it has subsequently dropped by around 15% along with most of the rest of the cryptocurrency market as a result of the repercussions from the FTX exchange's collapse in November.
Numerous cryptocurrency lenders who had previously given holders of the currency larger returns than staking, including Celsius Network, also went out of business last year. Staking is becoming more appealing as one of the few remaining opportunities to make income in cryptocurrencies when coin values aren't rising as a result of their death.
