Ethereum Dencun Upgrade Goes Live, Ushering In New Era Of Cheaper Fees

Updated: 13 March 2024

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The Dencun upgrade went live on the Ethereum mainnet at 8:55 a.m EST, a highly anticipated development billed as the biggest alteration to the network’s code in more than a year.

The hard fork ushered in a new era of cheaper fees for Layer-2 networks. To achieve this, Dencun introduced two upgrades simultaneously to Ethereum’s consensus and execution layers.

Proto-Danksharding Will Makes Its Debut With The Dencun Upgrade

A new Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) called “proto-danksharding” was also be activated with the launch of Dencun. This EIP is designed to enhance the network’s ability to process data from auxiliary networks.

Aspects of the Dencun package have been in the planning phase for several years. Initially, the upgrade was scheduled to launch towards the end of 2023, but was delayed due to engineering concerns. Ethereum developers have since performed rigorous testing of the upgrade on test networks.

Less than 24h before Dencun .oO!

Since the announcement, many client teams have shipped performance & stability improvements. The blog post has been updated to list both minimum & recommended versions — if you haven't done so yet, upgrade your node 🤖https://t.co/9Wa3Y5M5k4

— timbeiko.eth (@TimBeiko) March 12, 2024

The majority of the tests performed during this period went off without a hitch. It was only the first test on Georli that did not finalize for a couple of hours, but this issue was quickly resolved with a software patch.

Reducing Fees For End Users

Layer-2 networks including Polygon, Optimism and Arbitrum will benefit the most from the rollout of Dencun. Following the upgrade, these blockchains will no longer need to squeeze their transaction data into conventional transactions.

Instead, these networks will be able to push their data to dedicated slots on the Ethereum blockchain called blobs. Theoretically, this should assist Layer-2 networks settle bigger amounts of data more efficiently, which will subsequently reduce network fees.

The implementation of the Dencun upgrade comes amid much excitement in the crypto community over the possibility that regulators may approve spot Ethereum ETFs (exchange-traded funds) in the US. Multiple spot Bitcoin ETFs started trading on Jan. 11.