The Ethereum development community continues to make steady progress toward the highly anticipated Shanghai upgrade, with key updates emerging from the 102nd All Core Developers Consensus (ACDC) meeting held on February 9, 2023. As testing advances across public testnets and critical network components undergo refinement, timelines are being reassessed—potentially pushing the mainnet activation into early April. Simultaneously, the next major upgrade after Shanghai has received a new name: Deneb, marking a symbolic step forward in Ethereum’s post-merge evolution.
This article explores the latest developments in Ethereum’s upgrade roadmap, including testnet progression, MEV-Boost infrastructure challenges, and the renaming of EIP-4844, while integrating core SEO keywords such as Ethereum Shanghai upgrade, EIP 4844, Deneb, Sepolia testnet, ETH staking withdrawals, MEV-Boost, and Ethereum protocol upgrades.
Progress on the Ethereum Shanghai Upgrade
The recent ACDC meeting focused heavily on the status of the Shanghai upgrade, particularly its testing phase on public Ethereum testnets. The upgrade aims to enable staked ETH withdrawals—a long-awaited feature that will unlock liquidity for thousands of validators who have locked their assets since the Beacon Chain launch.
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The first successful activation of the Shanghai upgrade occurred on February 7 on the Zhejiang testnet, a dedicated public test environment. According to Barnabus Busa, DevOps engineer at the Ethereum Foundation, the transition was “very successful” with no observed network disruptions. This success laid the groundwork for broader testing.
The next critical milestone is the activation on Sepolia, the penultimate public testnet before mainnet deployment. Developers have agreed to target February 28 for this activation. Once Sepolia proves stable post-upgrade, attention will shift to Goerli—expected to undergo the upgrade in mid-to-late March—before the final rollout on the Ethereum mainnet.
Current estimates suggest the mainnet Shanghai upgrade could go live in early April, contingent upon smooth testing outcomes and resolution of outstanding infrastructure concerns.
Challenges with MEV-Boost Infrastructure Testing
Despite progress in core protocol testing, significant hurdles remain in the MEV-Boost ecosystem, which plays a crucial role in Ethereum’s current consensus mechanism by enabling validators to outsource block-building for higher rewards.
During the ACDC call, several developers highlighted gaps in testing related to relays and builders—key components of the MEV-Boost pipeline. Terence Tsao from the Prysm (CL) team noted a lack of "capable relays and builders" on testnets, limiting realistic simulation of real-world conditions.
Potuz, a pseudonymous developer from the same team, stressed that moving forward with Sepolia’s fork without adequate builder testing would be premature:
“I don’t think we should even talk about forking Sepolia without first testing builders.”
In response, Danny Ryan acknowledged the need for parallel efforts. He proposed that execution layer (EL) client teams focus on testing only those parts of MEV software that directly impact the protocol layer. Additionally, he committed to collaborating with the Ethereum Foundation’s testing team to create a dedicated test environment where validator behavior during MEV infrastructure failures can be studied.
Ryan emphasized a pragmatic approach:
“My intuition is not to stop Sepolia testing right now, but rather to run many of these tests in parallel and continue evaluating over the coming weeks.”
Tim Beiko, chair of the All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) meetings, added that a blog announcement regarding the Sepolia upgrade would be published around February 20, with all client teams expected to have functional versions ready by February 17.
Farewell EIP 4844, Welcome Deneb
In parallel with Shanghai preparations, developers are advancing plans for the next major upgrade—formerly known as EIP 4844. During the meeting, it was officially announced that this upgrade would henceforth be called Deneb, named after Deneb (Alpha Cygni), one of the brightest stars in the constellation Cygnus.
This naming convention follows Ethereum’s tradition of using celestial names for hard forks—Shanghai follows earlier names like Paris (the Merge), Ropsten, and Kiln.
Hsiao-Wei Wang of the Ethereum Foundation reminded consensus layer teams to update references from “EIP 4844” to “Deneb” in GitHub repositories and pull requests. This rebranding helps streamline communication and aligns with versioning practices ahead of implementation.
EIP 4844 introduces proto-danksharding, a key step toward improving Ethereum’s scalability by introducing blobs—temporary data storage units attached to blocks that reduce load on the main chain. This paves the way for future full danksharding implementations.
Anton Nashatyrev, lead developer at Ether.Camp, shared findings on decoupling blob production from block propagation. His research shows that separating blob transmission into a distinct subnetwork reduces message reception time by 40–50%, significantly enhancing network efficiency.
Developers also discussed preliminary strategies for blob validation and highlighted an open issue concerning Beacon Chain APIs related to blob transaction signing—an area requiring further collaboration.
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Other Key Discussion Points
Beyond Shanghai and Deneb, several ancillary topics were addressed during the call:
Call for EIP Editors
Tim Beiko invited more execution layer developers to join the EIP Editor team, responsible for reviewing and managing Ethereum Improvement Proposals related to EL clients. Increased participation is seen as vital to maintaining proposal quality and throughput.
Deprecation of Legacy Engine API
Mikhail Kalinin from ConsenSys R&D proposed deprecating an outdated engine API method called exchangetransitionconfiguration. While non-urgent, this change will be revisited after the Shanghai upgrade stabilizes.
SSZ Format Discussions
With Deneb preparations underway, changes to the Simple Serialize (SSZ) format—used for data encoding in consensus—are becoming more relevant. A dedicated SSZ-focused call is scheduled for February 15 to address proposed modifications.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: What is the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade?
A: The Shanghai upgrade is a major protocol update enabling staked ETH withdrawals for the first time since Ethereum's transition to proof-of-stake. It marks a critical step in enhancing user control and liquidity within the network.
Q: Why might the Shanghai upgrade be delayed to April?
A: Although testnet activations are progressing well, incomplete testing of MEV-Boost infrastructure—including relays and builders—has prompted cautious scheduling. Ensuring system resilience under real-world conditions takes priority over speed.
Q: What does EIP 4844 do, and why is it now called Deneb?
A: EIP 4844 introduces blob-carrying transactions to reduce Layer-2 transaction costs via proto-danksharding. It's renamed "Deneb" to follow Ethereum’s celestial naming theme and simplify coordination among developers.
Q: What are blob transactions?
A: Blobs are short-term data containers attached to blocks that allow Layer-2 rollups to post data more cheaply. They’re central to Ethereum’s scalability roadmap and will be introduced in the Deneb upgrade.
Q: How does MEV-Boost affect Ethereum upgrades?
A: MEV-Boost allows validators to maximize rewards by outsourcing block construction. However, its reliability depends on external relays and builders—components whose readiness doesn’t dictate protocol timelines but influence real-world performance.
Q: What comes after Shanghai?
A: After Shanghai, Ethereum will implement Deneb (formerly EIP 4844), followed by further scalability upgrades leading toward full danksharding and sustained long-term growth.