Ethereum (ETH) developers have outlined a comprehensive plan for network development in 2024, including significant upgrades and new proposals following the latest execution layer meeting on December 8.
The key focus is on the deprecation of the Goerli testnet, which is scheduled to fork in early 2024. The move is part of a strategy to activate ‘Dencun’ on the Ethereum network in January, marking a significant increase in technical capabilities.
Activate Tencoon
The Dencun upgrade introduces a new concept in transaction processing called ‘blob forward transactions’. In this context, ‘blobs’ is an abbreviation for ‘Binary Large Objects’. The main purpose of these blobs is to improve the way Ethereum stores and retrieves data by reducing the amount of data that must be stored indefinitely on the Ethereum blockchain.
As a result, transaction costs associated with data storage are expected to decrease, making overall transactions more economical. This is an important step toward the long-term goal of danksharding, a planned scaling solution that divides the network into smaller parallel segments (shards) to increase capacity and efficiency.
Another notable development is the introduction of new proposals to improve the performance of Execution Layer (EL) clients. This proposal, designed to counter potential censorship of the mempool, allows EL clients to override local builders using a variety of heuristics.
For example, if a client detects a transaction with an excessively high fee that is pending for a long period of time, it may ignore it. However, adopting these heuristics has not yet been widely implemented, and currently only Geth has a public pull request on this issue.
In terms of process updates, the development of the Meta Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) for Dencun was an important milestone. This is complemented by a draft “Meta EIP Backfill”, which aims to provide specifications for upgrades where Meta EIP was previously lacking.
According to ETH developer Tim Beiko, discussions on the Meta EIP have been critical to simplifying access to the fork specification, but discussions on roles and naming conventions are ongoing.
Prague/Electra Upgrade
In the future, the Ethereum community is preparing for the Prague/Electra network upgrade. Among the proposals for this upgrade is EIP-6110, which proposes a new way to supply on-chain validator deposits, replacing the existing Eth1 bridge system.
Future upgrades may also include Verkle Tries in the execution layer and Data Availability Sampling (DAS) in the consensus layer, requiring in-depth technical review and discussion.
The Ethereum community is encouraged to take an active role in shaping the future of the network by participating in these technical discussions and expressing preferences for potential features of future upgrades through forums and GitHub threads.
The client team will be reviewing these proposals, with further discussions scheduled for January. This plan forms part of the broader strategic development of the Ethereum network and reflects the developer community’s ongoing efforts to evolve and improve the platform.
The Ethereum developer community is actively engaged in improving the network’s capabilities with a clear roadmap for 2024. Upcoming developments and proposals highlight the network’s ongoing commitment to innovation and responsiveness to community feedback.