What has been described as the biggest change to Ethereum since its move to proof of stake in 2022, is dropping on 13 March 2024.
The Dencun Mainnet Announcement details nine specific protocol upgrades that will change how data is stored, significantly reduce transaction costs, or gas fees, and a host of other changes. Coindesk’s deputy managing editor Daniel Kuhn provides an assessment of the changes and their implications here.
According to the official Ethereum blog:
“The Dencun network upgrade has successfully activated on all testnets. It is now set for deployment on the Ethereum mainnet and will activate on the network at epoch 269568, occurring on March 13, 2024 at 13:55 UTC.”
The blog FAQ provides information for developers and builders, as well as those with an interest, including where the ‘Dencun’ designation came from.
“Upgrades to the consensus layer use star names, and those to the execution layer follow Devcon city names. “Dencun” is the combination of Deneb, a first-magnitude star in the Cygnus constellation, and Cancun, the location for Devcon 3.”
You can read more of Coindesk’s report here.
For those looking for a deeper dive, Fidelity Digital Assets has an in depth article here.
