Ethereum withdrawal testnet Zhejiang to go live on Feb.1

In the first major update since the Merge, Zhejiang will go live on top of the Ethereum mainnet on Feb. 1 at 15 UTC, allowing users to test how staked ether withdrawals will work.

According to Parithosh Jayanthi, Ethereum Foundation developer, the Zhejiang public withdrawal testnet will launch on February 1. Shortly after, in 6 days, the Shanghai and Capella testnets will also launch:

The Shanghai+Capella upgrade is going full steam ahead! The first public withdrawals testnet is launching 1st of Feb at 15 UTC.

All info here: https://t.co/S5kp9o6Pzs#TestingTheWithdrurge https://t.co/fw2SZqPbHe

— parithosh | (@parithosh_j) January 31, 2023

The new testnet will start today at 10 am ET, wherein users can try out staked ETH withdrawals. Right after Zhejang, users will be able to deposit ETH to the test network, but they can’t actually withdraw until the next week after the upgrade.

The Shanghai+Capella upgrade will be triggered simultaneously on both the EL and the CL 6 days later at epoch 1350. Once the upgrade has been triggered, you can test partial and full withdrawals as well as a few other EIPs that are included in the upgrade.

Another Ethereum developer, Barnabas Busa, announced that Zhejiang would be the first testnet to launch after the Merge upgrade. Although it’s still in beta, the code for full withdrawals has already been published on the Ethereum website.

The Ethereum Foundation aims to launch the Shanghai hard fork in March 2023. The upcoming Zhejiang testnet will include all the EIPs (Ethereum Improvement Protocols) of the Shanghai upgrade, including a timestamp-based forking feature. After Shanghai, the next upgrade, EIP-4844, is scheduled for May or June 2023. This upgrade has the potential to significantly improve Ethereum’s scalability and reduce transaction fees by 100 times.

The Shanghai update, once fully implemented, will allow for the withdrawal of users’ staked ether. After the successful Ethereum “Merge” update in September 2022, users could stake their ETH on the proof-of-stake network. However, funds remain locked until the hard fork.