Ethereum Creates 'Shadow Fork' to Evaluate Ether Withdrawal Environment

Ethereum developers have created a shadow fork

As the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade approaches, developers have created a shadow fork, or testnet, to see if the upgrade can prevent malicious attacks.

This testnet, called “Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1,” is intended to test the conditions needed for Ether withdrawals, which are currently disabled but are intended to become enabled in the update.

Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1 is finalizing 🚀🚀🚀

It started out with a few issues because the config wasn't correctly applied on geth (we disallow overriding the mainnet config). The config is applied correctly and all nodes are in agreement. We will start some evil nodes,.
— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) January 23, 2023

The creation of this testnet comes after devs have expressed an increasing urgency to make Ether staking withdrawals a reality and after they decided to exclude the proposed EVM Object Format (EOF) from the Shanghai upgrade due to its complexity.

Over 14.5 million ETH (over $23 billion worth at the time this is being written) is currently locked in the staking contract and cannot be withdrawn, so it is essential that the shadow fork is successful in testing the withdrawal conditions.

If it is, then the Ethereum devs will be one step closer to enabling withdrawals and offering users access to their much-needed funds.

TagsBlockchain Ethereum

Roland Guirdonan

Roland is a Public Relations & Communications guru with an immense passion for the blockchain and crypto industry. A fusion of his expertise and passion led to the dawn of Optimisus in 2020.