ETH will be upgraded to "Cancun-Deneb" and will begin testing on January 17

According to the official notes posted on ETH Fang’s Github repository, ETH Fang’s upcoming upgrade, “Cancun-Deneb” (also known as “Dencun”), will begin testing on January 17th.

According to the latest ETH Workshop All Core Developer Consensus Report, ETH Workshop developers have confirmed their progress in initiating the Goerli shadow fork to test the Cancun/Deneb upgrade with all clients. This testing phase is expected to start in the next one to two weeks.

Initial testing will take place on the Goerli testnet, followed by the Sepolia testnet on January 30 and the Holesky testnet on February 7.

The Cancun/Deneb upgrade is currently being tested on Devnet 12 where all Execution Layer (EL) and Consensus Layer (CL) client combinations, including the Prysm client, have been integrated. The MEV-Boost software has been activated for most client combinations, with the exception of those involving Prysm clients.

The introduction of the shadow fork is part of the testing process as a smaller-scale test fork that focuses on the specific improvements needed before the Dencun upgrade can be implemented on the main protocol.

However, the ETH team has not specified when Dencun will be deployed on mainnet. The Dencun upgrade includes a variety of tools designed to reduce fees, enable new features for bridges and staking pools, and limit the use of self-destruct operations on smart contracts.

After testing, the next goal will be to release the upgrade on mainnet around the end of February, although these dates may change depending on the results of the testnet fork.

ETH Fang’s Deneb-Cancun upgrade introduces the original Danksharding to enhance the scalability of the Layer 2 network and reduce transaction costs.

The upcoming ETH upgrade will make changes to the two mainnet layers of the ETH: the execution layer, which oversees the execution of smart contracts, and the consensus layer, which focuses on achieving blockchain consensus through staking.

Specifically, the upgrade of the execution layer will be named Cancun, and the upgrade of the consensus layer will be called Deneb, which together form the Deneb-Cancun upgrade.

A key feature of the Deneb-Cancun upgrade is ETH Improvement Proposal 4844 (EIP-4844), also known as the original danksharding. EIP-4844 is designed to enhance the scalability of ETH Workshop beyond the capabilities of current Layer 2 solutions.

EIP-4844 is designed to enable ETH nodes to temporarily store and retrieve off-chain data, addressing the data and storage needs of blockchain applications. Once activated, EIP-4844 is expected to reduce transaction costs for Layer 2 rollup solutions, including Optimism and Arbitrum, compared to current rates.

The proposal also allows the Layer 2 rollup network to temporarily store certain transactional data using a new format called “blobs.” These blobs can be deleted after 18 days, potentially reducing transaction fees for Layer 2 networks.

Initially, prior to Shapella, the developers decided to postpone the inclusion of EIP 4844 in the scope of the update, preferring instead to focus on staking withdrawals for ETH.

However, ETH developers have delved into the technical details of EIP 4844.

Other proposals in the Dencun upgrade include EIP-1153 (introducing a “temporary storage” system to further reduce fees) and EIP-4788 (increasing transparency by storing the root of each Beacon Chain block in a smart contract that applications can query). The data from EIP-4788 is expected to be used for new features for bridges and staking pools.

THERE ARE CONCERNS THAT ETH FANG’S DENCUN UPGRADE DEPLOYMENT ON MAINNET MAY BE DELAYED

At the ETH consensus layer meeting held a month ago, there was concern that the deployment of the ETH upgrade known as “Dencun” on mainnet could be delayed. Tim Beiko of the ETH Fang Foundation highlighted that there were no upgrades to public testnets such as Goerli, Sepolia, and Holesky.

Beiko noted that if Dencun doesn’t launch on the public testnet before Devconnect Developer Conference in November 2023, the mainnet deployment could be delayed until after the Christmas holidays, and possibly even until 2024.

Factors such as the readiness of the software code, testing of the execution and consensus layers of the ETH, and the readiness of multiple client teams were considered critical to the Dencun mainnet deployment. At the time of the meeting, the upgrade was in the “devnet phase”, with plans to test on a network of localized developers called “Devnet 9” before transitioning to the public testnet phase.

Dencun will be the first major update since the release of Shapella earlier this year, which allows the withdrawal of ETH coins (ETH) from the blockchain. ETH upgrades are typically tested for several months before being deployed to mainnet. The last upgrade, codenamed “Shapella”, began testing on February 7 and went live on mainnet on April 12.