Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade Is Coming: What You Need To Know

Things to know:

– Ethereum’s upcoming Shanghai upgrade is generating significant attention, but what exactly does it entail for the world’s second-largest protocol, and how will it influence your Ledger Live experience? – Retrieving your staked ETH through Ledger Live with Lido or Kiln apps won’t be immediate. You will be able to unstake them around May 2023. – For Ledger Enterprise clients, the Shanghai upgrade will provide new incentives for institutions and corporates to stake their Ethereum assets as they will be able to unlock and withdraw their rewards, which significantly de-risk them as an investment.

The Merge, a successful software upgrade that took place in September of last year, brought significant alterations to the Ethereum protocol, shifting it from a proof-of-work blockchain to a proof-of-stake protocol. This upgrade was the initial phase of the five stages of Ethereum’s development, as outlined by Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, including “The Merge,” “The Surge,” “The Verge,” “The Purge,” and “The Splurge.” 

If you want to deep dive into Ethereum’s scaling roadmap, you can read this article where Charles Guillemet, CTO of Ledger, provides critical insights into the future of Ethereum.

What Is The Shanghai Upgrade?

Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade is a hard fork, set to happen on April 12th, 2023. This software upgrade will implement EIP-4895, allowing validators to withdraw their staked ETH. So far, the staked coins remain blocked on the protocol, meaning that users can’t retrieve their rewards. 

After the upgrade, validators will be able to:

• Unlock and withdraw their staking rewards.
• Unstake ETH and gain access to their entire balance.
• Earn rewards that will be distributed automatically. 
• Re-stake to sign back up and start earning more rewards. 

The Shanghai upgrade will also include three other improvement proposals that tackle high gas fees, slow transaction processing time, and the overall performance of the network.

For Charles Guillemet, CTO at Ledger, “With the Shanghai upgrade, the completion of the blockchain migration to Proof of Stake is a significant milestone in the evolution of Ethereum. Users will be able to withdraw their Staked Ethereum, which will not only bring more liquidity to the market but also encourage those who were previously hesitant to stake their ETH due to uncertainties around locking time. This upgrade highlights the Ethereum community’s remarkable ability to adapt and update its protocol seamlessly. I’m eagerly anticipating upcoming updates that will further enhance blockchain scalability.”

Shanghai Upgrade: What Does It Mean For Ledger Live Users? 

Staking with Lido through Ledger Live:

While the upgrade will soon be live, Ledger Live Lido users will only be able to withdraw their staked ETH from their Ledger Live app around May 2023. stETH holders will be able to unstake their stETH and in return receive ETH at a 1:1 ratio.

Withdrawals will be handled through a Request and Claim process:

• Request: A user locks stETH as a withdrawal request.
• Fulfillment: The protocol sources ETH to fulfill the withdrawal request, locks the ETH, burns the locked stETH, and marks the withdrawal request as claimable.
• Claim: The user claims their ETH.

It’s uncertain how long it will take to process withdrawals – expect a couple of hours in the best case and less than a week for most requests. However, in some cases, it may be significantly longer.

Staking with Kiln through Ledger Live:

Just like with Lido users, Kiln users on Ledger Live will also be able to withdraw their staked ETH around May 2023 by following these simple steps: 

1. Unlock and connect their Ledger device to the Ledger Live app.
2. Navigate to the Discover section.
3. Select Kiln.
4. Go to the Rewards tab and select the validator(s).
5. Click Unstake.
6. Review and verify the transaction using their Ledger device.

Once the validator goes through the exit and withdrawal queues, you can go back to the Rewards tab, click the Withdraw button and claim your ETH.

How long does the withdrawal process take?

It can take up to several hours or days. The length of the exit and withdrawal queues depend on various factors such as the number of active validators and the number of validators who want to exit. Only a certain number of validators can exit the queue per epoch. Currently, it’s 7 validators per epoch, with an epoch occurring every 6.4 minutes.

You can monitor the queues on https://beaconcha.in/

Shanghai Upgrade: What Does It Mean For Ledger Enterprise Clients?

For Ledger Enterprise clients, the Shanghai upgrade will provide new incentives for institutions and corporates to stake their Ethereum assets as they will be able to unlock and withdraw their rewards which significantly de-risk them as an investment. Unlocking rewards can also open new financial opportunities with the possibility to compound rewards though pool staking.

For Alex Zinder, Head of Ledger Enterprise, “with the coming clarity on the timing of the update, there is no better time than now to add ETH staking to your institutional yield strategy. Ledger is seeing great demand for ETH staking from its retail users, so, if you want to bring secure and compliant ETH staking to your retail audience, contact Ledger Enterprise.”

By staking your digital assets with Ledger Enterprise, you can access a seamless, secure, all-in-one digital asset management platform, a fully customizable governance framework, real digital ownership, and 100% auditable and regulatory-friendly reporting.

Learn more about how to stake with Ledger Enterprise here.