Temporary Transaction Pause For Ethereum's Shanghai Upgrade

Due to the Shanghai upgrade, we’ll be pausing portfolio buys & sells, as well as tournament entries, starting Wednesday (4/11) for up to 5 hours. Don't worry, though - transfers in and out of your Bitcoin wallet will not be affected during this period.

If you're curious about the Shanghai upgrade, here's some extra information to satisfy your curiosity:

The Shanghai upgrade is a hard fork that will implement several Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), with the primary focus on EIP-4895. This particular EIP enables validators to withdraw ETH that has been staked since as far back as December 2020. About 14% of all ETH, accounting for 16 million tokens and a current value of over $26 billion, are currently staked.

Validators have been crucial to Ethereum since the Merge in September 2022, which began the process of shifting Ethereum's consensus mechanism from proof-of-work to proof-of-stake. The Shanghai upgrade will finally allow validators to unlock all their staked ETH and withdraw their assets freely. This is a significant milestone, as validators have been staking ETH since December 2020 when the Beacon Chain was released.

Aside from EIP-4895, the Shanghai upgrade also includes several other EIPs aimed at reducing gas costs for Ethereum developers. However, it's worth noting that the fork doesn't include EIP-4844, which facilitates the "sharding" of the Ethereum blockchain for better scalability. That improvement is expected to come later in 2023.

In summary, while the Shanghai upgrade might not be as massive as the Merge, it still holds considerable implications for those with staked ETH on the chain. We appreciate your understanding as we pause transactions to ensure a smooth integration with the upcoming upgrade. Remember, this pause will only affect portfolio buys & sells and tournament entries - your Bitcoin wallet transfers will remain unaffected.

Thanks for your patience, and we'll see you on the other side of the Ethereum Shanghai upgrade!