According to a report from “The Block,” Ethereum core developers have deployed the Dencun hard fork upgrade on the Goerli testnet, which includes the important Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-4844 (Proto-danksharding).
During a live stream, core developers confirmed that the Dencun upgrade took place around 2:35 pm on Wednesday (17th) on the Goerli test network. However, the upgrade encountered some obstacles, including potential “chain splits” due to synchronization issues between clients. It is expected that client teams will investigate this issue and release a fix. The network is currently awaiting finality.
During crucial upgrade periods, client issues often arise on the testnet, and client teams typically resolve synchronization errors before the mainnet upgrade.
To prepare for this transition, the development team chose a phased approach – first implementing the upgrade on different testnets. Following today’s deployment on the Goerli testnet, the next steps include launching Dencun on the Sepolia testnet on January 31st, upgrading on the Holesky testnet on February 7th, with the final mainnet upgrade expected to be implemented by the end of the first quarter of 2024.
The key point of this Dencun deployment is the introduction of the Ethereum Improvement Proposal EIP-4844 – a new transaction mechanism known as “temporary blobs” or “proto-danksharding,” which allows Ethereum nodes to temporarily store and access off-chain data to reduce storage requirements. It is expected that this will significantly reduce transaction costs for Ethereum dApps, particularly benefiting Layer 2 networks.
Related report: “ETH to BTC exchange rate hits new low! When will the Ethereum ‘Cancun Upgrade’ arrive?”