Although the Shanghai hard fork of the Ethereum blockchain, also known as Shapella, is set to go live on April 12, if you stake ETH through a staking service or staking pool, you may not receive your rewards immediately.

With just two weeks until the Ethereum blockchain’s Shanghai upgrade, or more accurately known as “Shapella,” stakers may be starting to wonder how long after the upgrade they’ll be able to receive rewards.

But depending on how people stake their Ether (ETH), they may not be able to withdraw those rewards immediately.

On Ethereum, there are different ways to stake your ETH — directly as a validator or through a staking service.

Before participating in the block validation process, validators agree to lock 32 ETH (currently worth about $58,000) into the beacon chain.

But not everyone has 32 ETH, so staking services or decentralized staking pools have sprung up, allowing users to stake any amount they like into that service or pool, which will then pool it with other stakers’ ETH and lock it into the chain.

Shapella will automatically unlock ETH rewards for validators.

But for service providers or stake pools, it is up to them to decide when to release the rewards.

If you are a solo staker or running your own validator:

A full withdrawal, on the other hand, is when you take your entire balance out of the blockchain, including the 32 ETH. This means that your validator will stop participating in the block validation process. A full withdrawal does not happen automatically, as the validator needs to send a message to the blockchain to add itself to the exit queue. This takes time and is released gradually.

You can withdraw your staked ETH in two ways: partial withdrawal and full withdrawal.

Partial withdrawals are the excess profits a person makes after 32 ETH (or earned rewards). These rewards can be withdrawn immediately and your validator will continue to add blocks to the beacon chain.

If you run your own validator, you must migrate your validator to include the 0x01 withdrawal voucher. If you do not, partial withdrawals will not occur automatically.

Although partial withdrawals are available immediately, receiving these rewards will also depend on how many withdrawal requests need to be processed. Only 16 partial withdrawal requests can be put into a slot (which happens every 12 seconds). Depending on the number of requests after the Shanghai live broadcast, the queue may take hours.

If you are using a decentralized mining pool or staking service:

Those who stake ETH through a staking service or decentralized mining pool will need to check with their provider about the timeline for staked ETH withdrawals.

Ethereum, which runs a staking service, said earlier this month that it would process withdrawal requests about 24 hours after Shapella is finalized. “All unstaking requests are processed on-chain, and we will pass on your unstaked funds and staking rewards to you once the Ethereum protocol is released,” it said in a tweet.

Lido, the largest liquidity staking protocol, said users holding stETH will not be able to withdraw their ETH until the protocol is upgraded in mid-May. Lido gave the timeline so that the protocol can pass appropriate security checks.

Another decentralized staking protocol, Rocketpool, has not yet confirmed when it will allow users to unstake their ETH. So if you expect to receive any rewards from your staked ETH, be sure to check with your provider when that will happen, as it may not happen on April 12. If you are running your own validator, ensure the correct withdrawal credentials.