Ethereum’s next upgrade: What you need to know

Ethereum is gearing up for another major upgrade with the Fusaka hard fork, set for 5 November, 2025. This will be the first major overhaul of Ethereum’s core infrastructure since the Shanghai upgrade in 2023, which unlocked staked ether for withdrawals.

Unlike Shanghai, which had major implications for ETH liquidity and staking, Fusaka is designed to strengthen Ethereum’s technical foundations, making the blockchain faster, more reliable, and better equipped for future growth.

Read more: Crypto live prices

“Ethereum has recently overtaken bitcoin as the most traded asset on our spot market for the first time this year,” said Lennix Lai, global chief commercial officer. “This signals a distinct rotation as traders reposition while bitcoin consolidates near all-time high, potentially driven by anticipation around upcoming Ethereum upgrades, like the Fusaka upgrade.”

The upgrade will introduce 11 improvements aimed at boosting scalability, protecting against network spam, and allowing more transactions to be processed per block. Highlights include tools that let Ethereum handle data more efficiently, safeguards against malicious activity, and a higher transaction capacity to support rising user demand.

Fusaka has been undergoing extensive testing, with Devnet-3 launched in July and public testnets rolling out through September and October 2025. The mainnet upgrade is timed to coincide with the Devconnect conference in Buenos Aires in November. This reflects Ethereum’s accelerated upgrade cycle and its commitment to continuous performance improvements.

The value of ether (ETH-USD) has been rising over the past month. On Thursday, ether rose by around 2% to over $4,200.

An example of how an Ethereum update can make a major impact on the digital asset is when the network saw the Shanghai upgrade in 2023, had a significant market impact. It unlocked more than 18 million ether for withdrawal and marked a pivotal moment in Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake. Yahoo Finance UK spoke to industry experts at the time about the effect this would have on the crypto market.

Back in 2023, Ethereum’s Shanghai upgrade made over 18 million ether, worth about $34bn, available for withdrawal. At the time, this sparked fears of a sudden flood of supply on the market and a potential short-term price dip.

Jim McDonald, CTO of London staking firm Attestant, told Fortune at the time: “The price of Ethereum is expected to dip sharply right after Shanghai as about 50% to 70% of early withdrawers cash out as the price of ETH has more than quadrupled since December, and there are profits to be had.”