The long-awaited Shanghai update of Ethereum has been released as planned on Wednesday night. This update now allows users to withdraw previously staked Ethereum on the network, a feature that was not available before.
The update also brings a new approach to staking withdrawals, eliminating the need for users to submit specific withdrawal requests and pay transaction fees. With this new approach, withdrawal requests are not in competition for execution layer block space.
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However, the major upgrade caused some trouble for the users, as many were having trouble withdrawing their staked ETH.
Around $1.4 billion worth of Ethereum stuck in withdrawal queue
According to the details from Nansen, users were facing a withdrawal queue of over $1.4 billion on Thursday. The much-awaited Shapella upgrade was expected to unlock over $30 billion worth of ether.
There were also no comments regarding the hindrances to withdrawals from the Ethereum Foundation. Nansen analyst Martin Lee told Reuters via email that the Ethereum blockchain can process 1,800 validator withdrawals, or 57,600 ether per day.
Lee also stated: “In an extreme scenario, if there’s no limits, and a large majority of validators exit, the Ethereum network would be vulnerable to attacks and bad actors.”