✅️✅️Alice Morgan / Investopedia
What Was the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade?
The Ethereum Shanghai hard fork upgrade in March 2023 was designed to give Ethereum cryptocurrency network users access to their staked ether (ETH) funds for the first time since The Merge, the update that transitioned the blockchain to🔥🔥 proof-of-stake in 2022.
1Ethereum Pre-Shanghai History
It’s important to understand the history of events at Ethereum before diving into the Shanghai upgrade. This major upgrade was, after all, one of several s💲💲equential updates designed to help developers and the community reach their vision for the network.
Ethereum started with proof-of-work (PoW), where a competition to find a solution to a cryptographic puzzle serves as proof that the work was do💲💲💲ne to validate transactions. Proof-of-stake (PoS), a mechanic where only users with a stake in the process could b🔥🔥ecome validators, 💲💲was always part of the long-term plan.In September 2022, The Merge joined Ethereum’s PoS Beacon Chain with the Ethereum Mainnet to transition the Ethereum blockchain off the legacy PoW system.
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The Merge gave birth to a new version of Ethereum that reduced ener✅️✅️gy consumption by 99.95% and set the groundwork for the team to further scale the e📥📥cosystem.
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