The highly anticipated Dencun upgrade for the Ethereum blockchain won’t be making its debut in 2023 as initially expected. Ethereum’s core developers have decided to push back the upgrade’s release until at least 2024, a revelation made during the latest All Core Developers meeting. After the meeting, software developer Tim Beiko took to social media to provide an update on the expected timeline for the upgrade.
Ethereum’s Dencun Upgrade: Mainnet Release Now Anticipated in 2024
The primary objective of the Dencun upgrade is to elevate Ethereum’s performance on multiple fronts, including scalability, security, and user-friendliness. One of its key features is the introduction of “data blobs,” a novel transaction type designed to optimize data storage and accessibility for layer two (L2) rollups built upon the Ethereum platform. Originally, the upgrade was planned to be divided into two distinct segments: Deneb, targeting the Consensus Layer, and Cancun, focusing on the Execution Layer.
However, post-meeting, Beiko shed light on the need for additional testing before the upgrade can be safely deployed on the mainnet. While the Execution Layer teams expressed their readiness to commence testing on the Goerli testnet, the Consensus Layer teams indicated that they require a few more weeks to finalize their codebase adjustments. Furthermore, the mev-boost pipeline has yet to undergo testing across all clients.
A significant moment during the meeting occurred when the developer behind Prysm, the Ethereum proof-of-stake client written in Go, remarked, “there’s no way” Dencun would be prepared for the mainnet this year. Given these circumstances, the anticipated fork on the Goerli testnet is now expected to occur no earlier than late November. Typically, testnets necessitate a minimum of two weeks between forks, implying that the Dencun upgrade is likely to debut on the mainnet after the 2023 holiday season and into 2024.
Beiko emphasized, “Nothing here is set/final, of course, but there’s at least a path being drawn towards mainnet.” The developers will persist in their testing efforts and coordination in the coming months to ensure a seamless rollout of the upgrade when the time arrives. Additionally, the developer added, “By next week’s ACDC, we’ll launch devnet-11 will all clients being setup with mev-boost and try to run a Goerli shadow fork.”
What do you think about devs postponing the Dencun upgrade until next year? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
