Time to buy ‘jpegs’? Community responds to upcoming Ethereum withdrawals

On March 28, Ethereum core developers confirmed the Shapella upgrade would take effect at 10:27 pm UTC on April 12. According to the announcement, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4895 will allow withdrawals after moving the staked Ether (ETH) from the Beacon Chain to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) — the execution layer. This will allow full and partial withdrawals with some mechanisms set in place to make sure that a flood of ETH will not disrupt the market.

Many community members were happy with the new update, taking to social media to express their sentiments about the news. One community member said that they had serious doubts in the last two years. According to the Twitter user, they were unsure whether they would be able to ever unstake. However, the community member believes that the new update solidifies the importance of believing in something that is constantly being improved.

Jesse Pollak also gave praise to the Ethereum developers for being able to push the update within one month of the original timeline. He tweeted:

can we take a moment to celebrate that withdrawals are shipping <7 months after the merge, within ~1 month of the original timeline estimate?

this would be a remarkable accomplishment for any project, let alone one that is as decentralized and security-focused as ethereum. https://t.co/u7bbk5P0up

— Jesse Pollak (jesse.xyz) (@jessepollak) March 28, 2023

The Shapella hard fork, which is on its way to be activated on the Ethereum mainnet, will finally allow Ethereum validators to withdraw their Ether (ETH) from the Beacon Chain. The much-awaited update sparked reactions from community members, from celebrating the news to highlighting other concerns. 

Hal Press, the CEO of crypto hedge fund North Rock Digital, also put aside price commentaries to praise the Ethereum developers for working on completing the upgrade. 

Related: Ethereum co-founder Joe Lubin says no chance ETH is classed as security

While crediting the developers, another community member pointed out that the new update could also be the beginning of something ominous, as some expect the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to take action against Ethereum after withdrawals are enabled.

As many responded with serious sentiments, a Twitter user added some fun to the mix, saying it’s time to withdraw ETH and “blow it on jpegs,” suggesting to gamble all the ETH on nonfungible tokens.

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