The activation of the Shapella fork on the Sepolia testnet at epoch 56832 was successful, occurring at 4:04:48 AM UTC on February 28, 2023. Shapella was named after the combination of Shanghai, the location of Devcon 2, and Capella, the brightest star in the northern constellation of Auriga. Notably, this upgrade will not introduce any breaking changes for smart contracts, with the core feature being the activation of withdrawals.
Insights
Sepolia marks the second public testnet to test the Shapella Fork after Zhejiang, and we're thrilled to report that it's performing exceptionally well with all client combinations.
Source: Beaconchain Explorer
For developers looking to test smart contracts on the network, there are four faucet options available to receive test ETH. These include:
Parithosh Jayanthi, DevOps at Ethereum Foundation has successfully tested BLS changes and triggered a voluntary exit of validator 1550 on Sepolia Testnet.
According to Chris Hager, Engineer at Flashbots, all parts of their stack have been successfully upgraded, and no issues have been found in the code during their testing of the MEV-Boost relay upgrade.
#Besu / consensus client pairs humming along smoothly and processing withdrawals! We are seeing about 16 per block, the maximum. New logging on the left for new payloads Besu is receiving from the consensus layer (this particular log is right before and after the fork 🍴) pic.twitter.com/BZcSSG3vWK
— Hyperledger Besu (@HyperledgerBesu) February 28, 2023
EIPs
The Sepolia Testnet is a critical step in testing the upcoming Shapella fork on Ethereum. One of the primary goals of the testnet is to test all of the Shanghai EIPs, which include:
- EIP-3651: Warm COINBASE
- EIP-3855: PUSH0 instruction
- EIP-3860: Limit and meter initcode
- EIP-4895: Beacon chain push withdrawals as operations
- EIP-6049: Deprecate SELFDESTRUCT
All the changes to the consensus layer for the Capella upgrade are specified in the latest CL Release. This release provides a comprehensive overview of all the changes being made to the network and outlines the specifications for how they will be implemented.
Client Releases
The following client releases listed below are used in testing of Shapella Fork on Sepolia Testnet.
Consensus Layer Releases
| Name | Version |
|---|---|
| Lodestar | 1.5.0-rc0 |
| Nimbus | 23.2.0 |
| Prysm | 3.2.1 |
| Teku | 23.2.0 |
| Lighthouse | 3.5.0 |
Execution Layer Releases
| Name | Version |
|---|---|
| Besu | 23.1.1-RC1 |
| Erigon | 2.39.0 |
| Geth | 1.11.2 |
| Nethermind | 1.17.0 |
Bugs
Anyone from metamask online? We're seeing some old balances on Sepolia, might be either some nodes not updated or some caching mechansim going rogue. Pls dm me
— MariusVanDerWijden (@vdWijden) February 28, 2023
Users of the Metamask wallet have experienced issues with their ETH balance not updating after Beacon Chain Withdrawals. This seems to be caused by the fact that when a withdrawal happens on the Beacon Chain, it increments the account's balance without a transaction, similar to how PoW rewards were handled. However, on MetaMask, these balance updates aren't reflected.
Additionally, it was reported that some Prism validators were initially offline due to an old geth version. However, after 10 minutes, they came back online.
Chris Hager has also reported experiencing issues due to a geth configuration error, which caused their builder to not sync and prevented them from delivering blocks. Fortunately, this was resolved by simply using the correct --override.shanghai flag.
Some developers have reported issues with node peering, although the cause is not yet clear.
Future Scope
As the Sepolia Testnet continues to provide valuable insights into the upcoming Shapella upgrade, Ethereum developers are already looking ahead to the next phase of testing. Specifically, they will now be focusing on testing Shapella on the Goerli testnet before eventually moving it to the mainnet.
The goal of testing Shapella on the Goerli testnet is to identify any remaining bugs or issues with the upgrade before it is released on the mainnet. By thoroughly testing the upgrade on a live network, developers can ensure that it will work as intended and minimize the risk of any unforeseen issues.
By carefully testing the upgrade on multiple testnets, Ethereum developers are taking a measured and thoughtful approach to its implementation, ensuring a smooth and successful transition to the new upgrade.
Related Articles
- Shandong: Pre-Shanghai Testnet
- Zhejiang Public Testnet is Finalizing
- Why Ethereum Clients prefer SSZ over RLP?
- Upcoming Changes to Ethereum Blockchain
- How Warm COINBASE helps in Gas Cost Reduction?
- Activating ETH Withdrawal with Shanghai-Capella
- Transient Storage for Beginners: EIP-1153 Explained
- How Layer 3 in Future will look like?
- An Overview of Beacon Chain API
Related Videos
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