ETH Dencun Upgrade Edges Closer as Devs Set Testnet Timeline

• Ethereum developers have set a timeline for the Dencun upgrade to go live on the Goerli testnet.
• The timeline hints at an early 2024 Ethereum mainnet launch.
• The upgrade will bring the long-anticipated proto-danksharding.

Following a series of delays, the long-anticipated Ethereum Dencun upgrade is edging closer. This development comes as developers have now set a tentative timeline for the deployment of the upgrade on the Goerli testnet.

Dencun Coming to a Testnet Near You

At the 176th All Core Developers Execution (ACDE) call held on Thursday, December 7, Ethereum developers suggested that a January 2024 launch was possible for Dencun on the Goerli testnet.

Ethereum Foundation protocol support member Tim Beiko disclosed the update in an X thread on Thursday. According to the developer, the January 2024 timeline is contingent on the success of a Goerli shadow fork mapped out for the coming weeks.

“We agreed that if things keep going well, we’d set a Goerli fork date at the start of 2024 and aim to activate Dencun on the network in January!” he wrote.

The January timeline for a potential testnet launch significantly increases the chance of the Dencun upgrade making it to the mainnet in Q1 2024. Developers had attributed the delay of Dencun till 2024 to a failure to roll out the upgrade on a testnet before Devconnect in November 2023.

Why Dencun Is so Important 

Dencun combines two upgrades, Deneb and Cancun, which will make changes to Ethereum’s consensus and execution layer. The most anticipated feature of the upgrade is Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4844 , also known as proto-danksharding, which will introduce blobs to make transactions on Layer 2 chains even cheaper.

Proto-danksharding represents the first step towards Ethereum’s danksharding goal, which will introduce a series of changes to tackle network congestion by breaking the network into smaller pieces that run in parallel, called shards.

On the Flipside 

• Dencun will be Goerli’s last upgrade. Developers intend to sunset the testnet in early 2024. Holesky , launched in September 2023, will replace Goerli as the largest Ethereum testnet.
• The projected timeline for Dencun’s testnet launch is contingent on the success of the Goerli shadow fork.

Why This Matters

The projected January 2024 timeline for Dencun’s testnet upgrade suggests that the upgrade could make it to the Ethereum mainnet in Q1 2024.

Read this to learn more about one of the key features of the Dencun upgrade:
What Are Ethereum Blobs, and How Do They Boost Scalability?

Find out how Flipkart’s Layer 2 plans benefit the Polygon ecosystem:
Polygon Gets Big Boost as Flipkart Unveils Layer 2 Plans