Ethereum’s much-anticipated Shanghai upgrade was successfully activated a few hours ago. Triggered around 22:27 UTC and finalized by 22:42 UTC, the upgrade now allows for the withdrawal of staked Ether. Data from beaconcha.in showed that within 30 minutes of the upgrade’s activation, approximately 285 withdrawals, involving around 5,413 ETH valued at $10 million, were processed. As of press time, nearly 783.95k Ethereum tokens worth $150 billion were pending withdrawal.
Ethereum’s Shanghai Upgrade goes live, opening the floodgates for withdrawals
On Thursday, Binance announced that users who staked Ether (ETH) through the exchange could begin redeeming coins with their BETH holdings at a 1:1 ratio starting April 19, 08:00 coordinated universal time (UTC).
However, Binance cautioned that once submitted, withdrawal requests cannot be canceled, and the process might initially be slow, taking anywhere from 15 days to several weeks for completion.
Users will receive the redeemed Ether in their spot wallets, but BETH tokens locked in pending ETH withdrawal requests will not be eligible for staking rewards. BETH is a wrapped token issued by Binance and pegged 1:1 to ETH on the Ethereum blockchain.
Binance announces ETH redemption process following Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade
Once withdrawal requests are fully processed, the redeemed ETH will be returned to users’ spot wallets. However, it is essential to note that BETH tokens locked in pending ETH withdrawal requests will not generate any ETH 2.0 staking rewards.
Interestingly, the Shanghai upgrade has had little impact on ETH’s price. At press time, it had risen by a 5.34% over the past 4 hours and was trading at $1,995, according to CoinMarketCap.
