Ethereum’s core developers determined on a call Thursday that a network upgrade permitting users to withdraw staked ETH could launch as early as March of next year. 

In the months following Ethereum’s historic, successfully executed merge upgrade in September, the network’s developers weighed what updates to include in their next upgrade, Shanghai. Many improvements jockeyed for consideration, and different factions of developers lobbied to have their priorities included. But one upgrade in particular rose to the top of almost every list: staked ETH withdrawals. 

When the merge transitioned Ethereum to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, it changed how the network generates ETH. Ethereum holders can now deposit their existing ETH with the network, in order to generate new ETH. The more you deposit, the greater the yield. There’s only one hitch: you can’t get any of that ETH back yet.