Withdrawals are imminent.

tl;dr

• Shanghai+Capella (aka Shapella) is on the horizon. Stakers, node operators, infrastructure providers -- pay attention and test!
• The Academic Grants Round is live! Applications are due by February 27, 2023

Shapella on the horizon 🌅

After much testing and development, the Shanghai+Capella (Shapella) mainnet upgrade is moving into the final pre-launch sequence -- public testnets!

The Zhejiang testnet is live and available for stakers and users to test Shapella today. And, the first of the long-standing public testnets -- Sepolia -- is scheduled to go through the upgrade on February 28th.

Shapella contains many features, but most importantly to stakers and the consensus-layer, is the enabling of withdrawals. Full withdrawals will be available for exited validators, whereas partial withdrawals will be available for active validator balances in excess of 32 ETH. For validators to partake in withdrawals, they must have a 0x01 execution-layer withdrawal credential. If a validator currently has a 0x00 BLS withdrawal credential, they must sign a change operation to 0x01 to enable withdrawals.

Please see this ETH Withdrawals FAQ to learn more about withdrawal mechanics and enabling withdrawals for your validator.

If you are an Ethereum staker, node operator, infrastructure provider, or otherwise, now is a the time to get up to speed on the coming Shapella upgrade, test your software, and pay attention. From here, each public testnet will be upgraded, and if all goes according to plan, mainnet will soon follow.

The Academic Grants Round is live 🤓

The Academic Grants Round is live!

After last year's major success in inviting academic's across the globe to work on projects in the Ethereum orbit, the program has been rebooted with an exciting new wishlist covering areas from cryptography to protocol design to a new category -- humanities. Please use the categories and proposed topics as inspiration, but don't let it stifle your creativity. Projects in any domain related to Ethereum -- the protocol, security, applications, impact, and community -- will be considered.

Academic Grant applications are due February 27, 2023. Apply today 🚀