ETHEREUM

Ethereum's final testnet Goerli upgrade completed, core developers confirm mainnet upgrade date in April on Thursday.

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Ethereum

The Ethereum test network Goerli executed the Shapella network upgrade on the morning of March 15, at epoch 162304, following the Zhejiang and Sepolia upgrades. Goerli is the third and final test network upgrade before the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade.

The Goerli Testnet Has Been Upgraded

Shapella simulated the staking unlock function on the testnet, allowing validators to withdraw their staked funds in full, while validators with balances over 32 ETH can partially withdraw.

Goerli is not only the last testnet before the Shanghai upgrade, but also the testnet with the highest number of participants and network load compared to the previous Zhejiang and Sepolia testnets, making it better suited to simulate Ethereum mainnet activities and address any issues before the Shanghai upgrade.

Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko stated that the exact date for the Shanghai upgrade in April will be confirmed during a conference call on Thursday, but Goerli is currently experiencing low participation rates.

CoinDesk reported that during epoch 162304 activation, the participation rate of node validators was only 29%, with Ben Edgington, Product Lead for Ethereum client Teku, mentioning in an upgrade meeting that this could be due to most validators not upgrading in a timely manner.

By the time of reporting, the participation rate had slightly increased to 44.5%.

Tim Beiko pointed out on Twitter that one of the issues with the testnet is that the ETH on the testnet has no real value, affecting the motivation of node validators to participate. Another possible reason is that the testnet processed a large number of withdrawals during the fork upgrade, leading to errors in some low-resource nodes.

However, he also emphasized that the operational status of the Goerli testnet may generally be worse than the mainnet, as testnet nodes are more likely to run on lower resources compared to the mainnet. Updates on these matters will be discussed comprehensively during Execution Layer Meeting 157 on Thursday.