Ethereum: Sepolia testnet successful, but Buterin admits…

• The Ethereum Sepolia Testnet was successful as validators geared up for the Shanghai Upgrade.
• The Georli Testnet is next but Vitalik said there is more work to be done.

As the Shanghai Upgrade inched closer, Ethereum [ETH] developers successfully deployed the Sepolia Testnet on the blockchain. The Sepolia, the second Testnet, finalized its checkpoint at 56830 while the epoch activated at 56832. Also, several Ethereum developers confirmed that the Georli Testnet would be next before the final upgrade.

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The developers used the Testnet to simulate the staking withdrawal activity that would eventually happen with the Shanghai Upgrade on the Ethereum Mainnet. And, as soon as Georli is announced successful, validators who staked 32 ETH and above can withdraw their rewards.

It is noteworthy to reference that Ethereum also passed through similar stages of Testnets before the success of the Merge in 2022. 

Ambush on the road to Shanghai

At one point, the validator count decreased significantly around the fourth quarter of 2022. However, the number of addresses holding 32 ETH and more improved from the downturn of January. According to Glassnode’s data, the addresses slightly decreased to 129,364 as of 25 February. This metric describes the Ethereum externally owned address qualified for validating on ETH 2.0.

Source: Glassnode

While the drop might have signaled a lack of interest, the on-chain analytic platform revealed only minimal voluntary validator exit. Between 10 – 26 February, the number of departures was only 20 among the hundreds of thousands. 

Meanwhile, there have been fluctuations in the participation rate since the Ethereum Foundation confirmed the period the Shanghai Upgrade would occur. 

The participation rate measures validator responsiveness while tracking the proportion of missed blocks and total slots. At press, the participation rate was 99.462%. This implied that involvement in staking was at one of its highest points since the new year began.

Source: Glassnode

Temporary glitches bring more work

But since the Testnet announcement, only a few reactions have come from the Ethereum community — most enthusiastic. However, the blockchain co-founder Vitalik Buterin took to his blog to share some thoughts.

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Although unrelated to the Sepolia success, Vitalik referred to the glitches ETH wallets had in times past, as well as challenges with the User Interface (UI).

He also pointed out the previous transaction delays but noted that EIP-1559 had helped improved block stabilization time. However, he did not fail to admit that more needs to be done. The founder opined:

“Going from an average transaction taking minutes to get included before EIP-1559 to an average transaction taking seconds to get included after EIP-1559 and the Merge, has been a night-and-day change to how pleasant it is to use Ethereum. But more still needs to be done.”