The Ethereum community may have to wait longer for the Shanghai upgrade after the core developers’ bi-weekly meeting, Execution Layer Meeting 156, ended with a decision to have the hard fork run on the Goerli test network by March 14 and the final deployment somewhere in April.

The upgrade on the Goerli test network is an essential step in the run-up to the Shanghai fork, considering that the testnet is the largest in the Ethereum blockchain. Past Goerli, the developers would decide when to have the Shanghai upgrade on the main network, according to the deliberations of the March 2 meeting. The team successfully deployed the fork on Sepolia, a separate test network, on February 28. 

Also referred to as Shapella, Shanghai hard fork is the most anticipated upgrade on Ethereum, considering its financial implications. Ethereum Improvement Proposal – 4895 (EIP-4895) in the upgrade allows the transaction validators and token stakers to withdraw their staked ETH from the beacon chain once the fork goes live.