The Ethereum Dencun upgrade, originally scheduled for the end of 2023, has been postponed due to consensus issues. Today, Tim Beiko, the protocol support manager of the Ethereum Foundation, announced on X that testing will first commence on the Goerli testnet on January 17th, with more details to be released by the development team in the second week of January.
After the completion of the Shanghai + Capella upgrade on April 12th, the Ethereum community eagerly anticipated the next major upgrade, the Dencun upgrade, which is expected to enhance the overall scalability and efficiency of Ethereum. Originally planned for implementation at the end of 2023, it has been delayed until 2024 due to consensus issues.
Today, Tim Beiko officially announced on X that the Dencun upgrade will begin testing on the Goerli testnet on January 17th, followed by deployment on Sepolia on January 30th and deployment on Holesky on February 7th. If all goes well, the developers aim to deploy the changes on the mainnet before the end of February 2024. However, these dates may be subject to change based on the results of the testnet launch. In the past, the Shapella upgrade started testing on February 7th and was released on the mainnet on April 12th, so there may be a few months between the two.
Beiko added that an article covering fork details will be released in the second week of January 2024 to provide sufficient time for stakeholders to adapt to the updates.
The Dencun upgrade, a combination of “Cancun” and “Deneb,” includes rule changes for all protocols at the Ethereum execution layer in the “Cancun” upgrade. On the other hand, the consensus layer responsible for block validation will undergo its own fork, known as “Deneb.” Hence, the combined upgrade is referred to as “Dencun.”
One key feature of the Dencun upgrade is proto-danksharding, proposed in Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4844 (EIP-4844). This proposal aims to enhance Ethereum’s scalability and reduce transaction fees on the second layer network by allowing Ethereum nodes to temporarily store and retrieve off-chain data, surpassing current second layer solutions.
The Dencun upgrade also includes several other proposals, such as EIP-1153, which introduces a “temporary storage” system to further reduce costs, and EIP-4788, which enhances transparency by storing the root of each beacon chain block in smart contracts.
Originally expected to be launched by the end of this year, the Dencun upgrade was delayed to next year due to consensus issues. In June of this year, Ethereum core developers initially anticipated the Dencun upgrade to be activated before the end of this year. However, in late October, Potuz, an anonymous developer of Prysm (currently the most popular Ethereum client), pointed out that developers encountered consensus issues during the testing and upgrading process, making it unlikely to complete the upgrade before the Christmas holiday. It has now been officially scheduled for January 17th next year.
Related Reports
Latest progress on the Ethereum Cancun upgrade: Devnet 12 to be launched, project process, network specifications…
Ethereum Cancun upgrade “may be postponed until next year,” Devnet-9 participation rate reaches 93%
Ethereum Cancun upgrade core: How does EIP4844’s Blob reduce costs by 100 times?
Tags:
Dencun
ethereum
Goerli
Goerli testnet
upgrade
Cancun