Ethereum developers have revealed that they may begin testing the Dencun upgrade on the Georli testnet as early as the 17th of January, 2024.
The Dencun upgrade is a significant milestone for Ethereum, and introduces increased data storage by implementing a process called “proto-danksharding.”
The Dencun Upgrade
The plan was revealed during a bi-weekly call by developers, during which they revealed their target date for the Georli testnet to undergo the Dencun upgrade. The upgrade introduces proto-danksharding, an update (EIP-4844) that reduces Layer-2 rollup fees and increases blockchain space for data blobs. By expanding the Ethereum blockchain’s data storage capacity, the Dencun upgrade should increase the transaction capacity without significantly impacting or increasing gas prices.
If the test on the Georli testnet goes smoothly and without disruptions, developers aim to upgrade the Sepolia testnet by the 31st of January and the Holesky Network by the 7th of February. However, Tim Beiko, the Ethereum Foundation lead, highlighted the possibility of a cancellation or another postponement should there be any significant issues before the target date. This is because Dencun’s development has been plagued with technical issues. The upgrade was initially scheduled to occur in Q4 of 2023. However, it was pushed to 2024 thanks to various problems and developments.
The Georli Shadow Fork
The Georli Shadow Fork took place with a network configuration that involved 300 nodes across North America, Europe, Australia, and India. The fork was implemented successfully, and the network achieved a 99% participation rate. The participation rate refers to the number of nodes that successfully adopted the changes introduced by the fork.
Once the team was able to achieve stability, they initiated a network spamming exercise. While they aimed to achieve an average of 4 blobs per block, the network stabilized at 3. The introduction of blobs pushed the network’s bandwidth usage from an average of 700 kbps to 900 kbps. Additionally, 95% of the blobs were propagated in less than 2 seconds.
Ethereum Price Impact
The news about the Dencun upgrade is likely to give a boost to the Ethereum community. It could also attract new users and projects to the upgraded platform. Currently, Ethereum is trading at $2290, marking a drop of just over 1% over the past 24 hours. However, the asset’s price has shown an increase of 2% over the past week, according to data from CoinMarketCap.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
