Ethereum Dencun Upgrade: Here are 2 Crucial Dates to Watch

Following Ethereum Dencun Upgrade’s successful launch on its Goerli testnet, Galaxy Researcher Christine Kim has unveiled two crucial dates that the community members now need to look out for. 

Ethereum Dencun Upgrade Sees Key Improvement

The Ethereum Dencun upgrade on the Sepolia testnet is expected to be activated by January 30 while the same upgrade on the Holesky testnet remains scheduled for activation on February 7. Concerning the testnets activation, client releases for both upgrades will be bundled and shared in a blog post on January 23. 

The Ethereum Dencun Upgrade has been expected for a very long time with the launch scheduled for 2023 but due to certain discrepancies, the launch was consistently postponed to a more preferred date. It was sometime in October that client developers confirmed that they would not be implementing the hardfork before the end of the year.

“There is no way we are implementing a mainnet fork in 2023,” pseudonymous Prysm developer, Potuz stated.

It turned out to be that the developer clients for the consensus layer and the execution layer were at odds among themselves, further contributing to the delays experienced thus far.

Proposed Phased Launch of the Upgrade

The eventual launch on the Goerli test network indicates a significant milestone toward the integration into the Ethereum mainnet. The deployment on the Goerli testnet came with the implementation of EIP-4844. 

EIP-4844 is a revolutionary transaction mechanism colloquially referred to as Proto-Danksharding. It brings with it a system that reduces transaction costs for Decentralized Applications (DApps). This is achieved by allowing Ethereum nodes to temporarily store and access off-chain data. It effectively reduces the strain on storage resources, according to the description given by Ethereum developers.

Soon, this will contribute to enhancing the efficiency of Layer-2 rollup chains 

The upcoming deployment of the Ethereum Dencun Upgrade on Sepolia and Holesky testnets is largely dependent on what happens on the Goerli testnet in the coming weeks. By the time the upgrade is functioning smoothly on the three testnets, activation will be the next goal. The choice of a phased launch of the Ethereum Dencun Upgrade is to ensure a smooth transition. 

It is worth noting that the Ethereum Dencun Upgrade follows the Ethereum Shapella upgrade of 2023.