Amidst the anticipation for the Ethereum Dencun upgrade, the Ethereum Foundation has confirmed the successful activation of the upgrade across testnets as of 27th February.
The Foundation also announced that the Dencun upgrade would be activated on the Ethereum mainnet on 13th March at 8:55 am EST.
Ethereum Dencun Upgrade Set For Launch
The Ethereum Foundation confirmed the successful activation of the upcoming Dencun upgrade across testnets in a blog post published on 27th February. The blog post also confirmed that the upgrade would be activated on the Ethereum mainnet on 13th March. This marks a significant milestone in Ethereum’s efforts to enhance scalability and reduce transaction costs.
“The Dencun network upgrade has successfully activated on all testnets. It is now set for deployment on the Ethereum mainnet and will activate on the network at epoch 269568, occurring on 13th March 2024 at 13:55 UTC.”
Several Notable Improvements
The Dencun upgrade comes after last year’s Shapella upgrade and introduces several changes that aim to improve Ethereum’s network efficiency and capacity. One of the key features introduced in the upgrade is the introduction of temporary data blobs through EIP (Ethereum Improvement Proposal) 4844, also called protodanksharding.
Protodanksharding will help reduce Layer-2 transaction fees and make Ethereum more accessible and cost-effective for users. Blobs will help minimize storage and processing requirements by caching data for short-term transaction verification and further enhance the network’s transactional capability.
“The data in these blobs is not accessible to the EVM and is automatically deleted after a fixed time period (1-3 months). This means rollups can send their data much more cheaply and pass the savings on to end users in the form of cheaper transactions.”
Updates Required
The Ethereum Foundation has issued several guidelines and specifications to ensure a smooth transition to the upgraded mainnet. These specifications are specifically meant for stakers who must update their nodes and validator clients to ensure compatibility with the latest update and specific versions outlined by the Foundation.
If users fail to update their nodes and validator clients, they will be stuck on an incompatible chain. This means they will not be able to send ETH or be able to operate on the network following the Dencun upgrade. The upgrade was initially launched on Ethereum’s Sepolia testnet in January 2024. This was after its successful deployment on the Goerli testnet. Once fully implemented, Dencun will significantly increase Ethereum’s transaction processing capability, which could see the network process over 100,000 transactions per second.
More Clarity Through FAQs
Some have concerns regarding the Dencun upgrade, and the Ethereum Foundation has sought to allay these fears through a series of FAQs. Most concerns center around users’ actions to prepare for the upgrade. However, the Ethereum Foundation team stated that no action was required on users following Dencun’s mainnet launch unless their wallet provider asked them for specific actions.
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.
