Dencun on Ethereum Testnet – Devs Target March 13-16 For Mainnet Upgrade

Key Takeaways

• The Dencun upgrade has been successfully implemented on Ethereum’s Holesky testnet.
• Dencun is now live on all 3 testnets.
• Ethereum developers are targeting March 13-16 for the mainnet upgrade.

Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade is one step closer to completion after it was implemented on the Holsky testnet on Wednesday, February 7.

Following the successful testnet upgrade, Ethereum developers convened to discuss the next steps, announcing a new target date for the mainnet Dencun fork. 

Dencun Upgrade to Take Place in March

An amalgamation of two upgrades, Deneb and Cancun, set to occur simultaneously, will result in ‘Dencun,’ which aims to implement eight new Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs)

First announced in 2022, the Dencun fork was originally slated to occur in the second half of 2023, but Ethereum developers pushed the deadline back as the software code wasn’t ready on time. 

In January, Dencun finally went live on the Georli testnet. The Prysm implementation of Ethereum’s consensus specification encountered a bug at the moment of the hard fork which set things back by a few hours. Other than that, however, Georli upgraded successfully.

Several weeks later on January 30th, the upgrade was implemented on Ethereum’s second testnet, Sepolia, without any problems.  

Now, after the completion of Dencun on Holesky, the newest of the 3 test networks, all that is left to do is to carry out the mainnet upgrade.

During an Ethereum developer meeting  on Thursday, participants discussed what date Dencun will take place, eventually settling on March 13–16. The final date will be confirmed in a blog post shortly, they agreed.

What Happens After Dencun Proto-Danksharding Goes Live?

Now that developers have decided when Dencun will take place, all eyes are on Ethereum’s post-upgrade evolution.

Forming the centerpiece of the Dencun upgrade,  EIP-4844 introduces the concept of Proto Danksharding, a scaling solution that will make it cheaper and more efficient for Ethereum rollups to publish data to the base network. 

Although rollups are central to scaling Ethereum’s throughput, they are currently limited by the fact that they post their transactions in calldata , which is stored on chain permanently. 

Post-Dencun

Inscribing Ethereum calldata is one of the primary costs incurred by Layer 2 rollups, even though they don’t actually need to retain such detailed transaction data forever. To solve the problem, Proto-Danksharding introduces “data blobs” which are automatically deleted after a fixed period.

Post-Dencun, Proto-Danksharding data blobs will provide a major boost to rollups’ efficiency, helping reduce the cost of Layer 2 transactions.

About the Author

James Morales

Although his background is in crypto and FinTech news, these days, James likes to roam across CCN’s editorial breadth, focusing mostly on digital technology. Having always been fascinated by the latest innovations, he uses his platform as a journalist to explore how new technologies work, why they matter and how they might shape our future.

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