The eagerly anticipated withdrawals of staked ETH tokens will soon be tested in a brand-new test environment that is being prepared for launch by Ethereum developers.

The new “Zhejiang” Testnet is a necessary step for developers and regular users to test the network’s handling of staked ETH withdrawals. In technical circles, the new feature is known as Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP)-4895.

Given that user who has staked their ETH on Ethereum’s new proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain has so far been unable to withdraw their tokens or “unstake” them, the feature of allowing withdrawals of staked ETH is highly anticipated.

On February 1st, Zhejiang will go live at 15:00 UTC.

However, despite the fact that the testnet goes live on Wednesday, Ethereum Foundation engineer Barnabas Busa stated this week on Twitter that regular users will still have to wait six more days to test out the simulated withdrawals. Until February 7, these users will be able to deposit ETH into the testnet’s validators and then withdraw it.

Private testnet’s “rocket start”

The public testnet is the follow-up to the private testnet that was made available to Ethereum Developers on January 26. According to Busa, the testnet had “a very rocky start,” but the network eventually stabilized.

Progress toward Shanghai upgrade

The Shanghai hard fork, the next major upgrade to the Ethereum network, includes withdrawals of staked ETH.

Ethereum core developer Marius Van Der Wijden stated during a developer call last month that progress toward the Shanghai upgrade is favorable.

“Everything looks great. In the telephone conversation, Van Der Wijden stated, “I’m not aware of any issues that could delay Shanghai at this time.”

After developers agreed to remove several EIPs related to the EVM Object Format (EOF) that were supposed to be a part of Shanghai, the confirmation that things are on track for the Shanghai hard came. The developers claim that EOF will now be incorporated into a separate Ethereum upgrade sometime during the third quarter of this year.

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