A note on the official Ethereum GitHub repository states that the testing phase of the upcoming Ethereum upgrade, named Dencun, will begin on January 17.
The Goerli testnet will be the first to receive the upgrade, while the Sepolia and Holesky testnets will receive the upgrade in the coming weeks. However, the Ethereum team did not disclose the exact timing of the upgrade mainnet launch.
It was originally scheduled for remodeling in the fourth quarter of 2023, but was postponed to 2024 due to engineering issues.
Tim Beiko, head of protocol support at the Ethereum Foundation, pointed out that the deadline is flexible and can be modified if serious issues arise.
To give stakeholders a week’s notice that the upgrade is ready, the team plans to publish a blog post explaining the fork during the week of January 8, 2024.
Source: GitHub
What does tenkun mean?
The star name and city name Deneb and Cancun used for the consensus layer client upgrade and execution layer client upgrade respectively are the source of the Ethereum network update named Dencun.
Technically speaking, this will be important for Ethereum as it will introduce the well-known EIP-4844, commonly referred to as Proto Dank Sharding.
The latest update includes a variety of tools designed to reduce costs, provide additional features such as staking pools and bridges, and limit the use of self-destruction features in smart contracts.
Therefore, if no major problems arise, we are reviewing the next schedule.
– Görli: January 17, 6:32:00 UTC
– Sepolia: January 30 22:51:12 UTC
– Holsky: February 7, 11:34:24 UTC… And mainnet 🫡 pic.twitter.com/JFRt0ZHAi8
— timbeiko.eth ☀️ (@TimBeiko) December 21, 2023
Abort Options
During the call, Beiko stated that they may cancel if any serious or unexpected problems are discovered. He also noted that the goal is to publish the fork’s blog post in the first week of January, giving users at least a week to complete revisions.
“Of course, if we find any serious problems or strange things happening before then, we can cancel at any time,” he said. “This means that ideally we would publish a blog post about the fork during the week of January 8th, so people have at least a week to update.”
Ethereum currently trading at $2,288.52 territory. Chart: TradingView.com
Dencun: The technical aspect
In more technical terms, Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4844 or “proto-danksharding” is one of the key elements of Dencun. This proposal allows layer 2 rollup networks such as Arbitrum, Base, Polygon zkEVM, etc. to temporarily store specific transaction data with the help of the recently developed “blob” format.
Unlike the current practice of permanently retaining data in a “CALLDATA” field on the blockchain, blobs will have an 18-day deletion period. Ethereum creators predict that proto-danksharding will significantly reduce layer 2 transaction fees.
The testing phase of Ethereum updates often lasts several months before mainnet launch. Pre-release, codenamed ‘Shapella’, began testing on February 7th. The mainnet was launched on April 12th.
At the time of writing, Ethereum was trading at $2,287, down 1.3% and 1.7% over the past 24 hours and 7 days, respectively.
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