Ethereum developers created a shadow fork to test the future ability to withdraw staked ETH.
Withdrawal-Mainnet-Shadow-Fork-1 on Ethereum was created to test the blockchain’s potential vulnerabilities ahead of the Shanghai update. Ethereum Developer Marius van der Wijden tweeted about it.
The point of the tests is that developers will intentionally create malicious nodes and try to add them to the main network. Thus, van der Wijden and his colleague nicknamed Potuz will try to hack the network using “evil nodes.” Since the whole process will happen in a testnet, the results of these stress tests will give developers a chance to fix possible vulnerabilities in Ethereum before the Shanghai update takes effect.
Ethereum developers previously expressed concerns about possible problems with staked ETH withdrawals. A devnet was launched to test this process, but its purpose was to prepare the blockchain network for the planned update, so no stress tests were expected.
The Shanghai hard fork is scheduled for March 2023. One of the main aspects of the update is the access to staked ETH.
