After over two years since staking Ether became possible, stakers may finally withdraw their Ether. It all hinges on the proper execution of the Shanghai hardfork, which now has a date: April 12. 

After Ethereum successfully switched to proof-of-stake last September, developers started making haste with the option to unlock (unstake) the staked Ether. After all, what good is your ETH and staking rewards if your funds are locked up? 

The upgrade will enable the network’s stakers to withdraw their locked Ether (ETH) for the first time since December 2020. 

Shapella

A second hard fork will also be taking place alongside Shanghai, called Capella. Not shy to use word jokes, the Ethereum opted for the mashed up “Shapella” to denote the network upgrade.

According to Ethereum developers, the Shapella upgrade was successfully launched on the Goerli testnet as a final rehearsal before the mainnet launch. 

Will it affect the price negatively in the short term?

After the hardfork on April 12, a total amount of 17.5 million ETH, worth roughly 30 billion dollars, will become available on the market. Won't this supply shock create a massive price dump? Well, the Ethereum foundation has of course thought of this. 

To prevent instability in the markets, validators can’t unstake their Ether all at once. They can only immediately withdraw their accumulated staking yields. But if they all (hypothetically) want to fully withdraw, this will take 18 months. In total, less than 60,000 ETH will be eligible for withdrawal per day. Compare this to the roughly 14.000 ETH per day that was produced by Ethereum miners when it was still a proof-of-work network. And the 60 k ETH is the daily maximum, which doesn't mean that this number will be reached. 

What are the long-term implications?

In the long run, a fully functioning Ethereum staking market is considered a bullish development by many analysts. They expect that Ethereum will play an important role for investors from traditional money markets. As Bitcoin doesn't offer yield, Ethereum will be the biggest crypto that offers yield - something that traditional investors like to invest in.