A small change of code, a giant leap for Web3: Ethereum's Shapella upgrade

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Ethereum’s decentralized community of developers and innovators has done it yet again: The Shapella upgrade is complete — a significant milestone for the network that is the linchpin of Web3 tools. Why is Shapella significant? A deep dive: First, some context: Ethereum is the second-largest crypto asset by market cap. It is the first smart contract blockchain, developed by Vitalik Buterin and others in 2015. Now, about Shapella. The upgrade was actually done in two steps: SHAnghai & CapELLA. Together, they mark the final piece to Ethereum’s switch to Proof-of-Stake achieved last year. The upgrade enables the withdrawal of staked ETH and the rewards that were until now locked in. This is significant for a) ETH as an asset & b) Ethereum as the Web3 pillar.

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Let’s look at the impact of this on ETH as a crypto asset, first: The upgrade will make staked ETH liquid. Think of staking as deposits but on the blockchain. Holders stake their ETH to be network validators (or contribute to validators). (P.S: More on staking here: https://coinswitch.co/switch/crypto/what-is-crypto-staking/) To date, over 18 million ETH has been staked on the network — valued at over $33 billion. But ETH staked on-chain was not withdrawable. Shapella enabled that. On Ethereum, anyone with at least 32 ETH (1 ETH = ₹1,63,728) can become a validator. The algorithm is designed such that it drives a consensus among all these participants.