Ethereum to launch “Zhejiang” public withdrawal testnet on Feb. 1

The “Zhejiang” public withdrawal testnet will then be followed by the Shanghai testnet.
This is the first major upgrade since the Merge upgrade.
The “Zhejiang” allows tools to test how to collect and display ETH withdrawal information.

Ethereum Foundation developer Parithosh Jayanthi has confirmed via a Twitter post that the “Zhejiang” public testnet will be going live tomorrow (February 1, 15:00 UTC, 2023). The “Zhejiang” testnet will then be followed by the much-awaited Shanghai and Capella testnets.

Both the Shanghai and Capella testnets are scheduled to be triggered at epoch 1350.

Jayanthi was replying to another post by one, Barnabas Busa, who besides saying the testnet will go live tomorrow, said:

“Shanghai+Capella will be triggered 6 days later (at epoch 1350). You will be able to deposit validators, practice BLS change and exit without risk.”

In follow-up tweets, Jayanthi said:

“This is also a great opportunity for all tools to test out how they want to collect, display and use the withdrawal information. You can attempt to convert 0x00 credentials to 0x01 and set a withdrawal address. You can test partial withdrawals and full withdrawals by exiting your validator.”

Shanghai upgrade

The Shanghai and Capella upgrade testnets are expected to go live six days after the “Zhejiang” testnet, which will also feature all Ethereum Improvement Protocols (EIPs) like timestamp-based forking that will come with the Shanghai upgrade.

The Shanghai upgrade is designed to allow ETH users to withdraw their Ether tokens plus rewards. Ether holders have been able to stake ETH since the Merge upgrade that moved the Ethereum blockchain from a proof-of-work (PoW) to a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) blockchain. However, the staked funds remain locked, pending a new upgrade the Shanghai.

Ethereum Foundation is targeting March 2023 for the Shanghai upgrade. After the Shanghai upgrade, Ethereum developers will turn their eyes to the EIP-4844 upgrade which is scheduled for May or June this year.

The EIP-4844 upgrade aims at increasing the scalability of layer-2 rollups on Ethereum by more than 100 times and also lower transaction fees.