Ethereum developers are planning the next major upgrade to the blockchain, called “Dencun,” which will include two simultaneous upgrades known as “Cancun” and “Dencun.”
Ethereum developers are testing other proposals that could make it into the next hard fork. They aim to push Dancun to live in the second half of 2023, which marks a milestone in the evolution of the Ethereum blockchain. The Dancun upgrade is expected to bring improvements in terms of scalability, efficiency, and security, making the Ethereum network more robust and able to handle larger transaction volumes.
The primary goal of the upgrade is to increase the space for data, known as “blobs,” in order to scale the blockchain and lower the fees for Layer 2 assemblies. The upgrade will also include other technical upgrades, but the full scope is yet to be determined. The developers are testing other proposals before finalizing which will make them the next hard fork, and they aim to drive Dencun directly in the second half of 2023.
This will include the upgrade 4844 Ethereum Improvement Project (EIP)or Proto-Danksharding, as well as EIPs 6780And 6475And 1153.
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Danksharding is a proposed new sharding design for Ethereum (ETH) that simplifies previous designs. Provides more room for large data points for Layer 2 aggregation protocols that support high-throughput transactions. The combined fee marketplace is a major innovation introduced by Danksharding, where there is only one bidder that selects all transactions and data that go into the slot.
Proto-danksharding is a proposal to implement most of the logic and “scaffolding” for Danksharding, including a new transaction type called a blob-carrier transaction. Blob data is inaccessible to an EVM implementation but can be much cheaper than similar amounts of connection data. Available documentation claims that the difference between average load and worst case load justifies adding 1MB of data to the blocks everyone has to download but not to make connection data 10 times cheaper.
This will result in about 2.5 terabytes of growth per year, which is more than what Ethereum requires today. Implementing log expiration through EIP-4444 or the consensus layer can help limit the amount of data that must be stored, the report highlighted that keeping all historical data forever is not the goal of the protocol.
The Ethereum 4844 Improvement Proposal introduces the concept of “blobs”, which are vectors of 4096 field elements that represent polynomials on a given field. Two preassembly devices, namely point validation preassembly and point evaluation preassembly, are introduced in the point validation raw data exchange process. The blob validation pre-aggregation is intended for use by optimistic groups, while the point evaluation pre-aggregation is intended for use by ZK groups. Both assemblies are designed to improve the efficiency of the validation process in assembling protocols.
The Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 6780 proposes a functionality change to SELFDESTRUCT’s opcode to prepare for the implementation of Verkle Trees. The proposed change would limit SELFDESTRUCT to transferring all ether in the account to only the caller, except when called in the same transaction as contract creation, in which case storage and account keys would be deleted.
EIP-6475 proposes to add a new simple sequence type (SSZ) to represent optional values (T), which provides better readability and more compact sequencing. The proposed type, Optional (T), specifies an SSZ value of type T or no value.
EIP-1153 proposes to add two new optokens, TLOAD and TSTORE, to allow processing cache that behaves like storage but gets dumped after each transaction. This offers a gas-efficient solution to the connection between the frames and reduces the need for spool updates, which can be costly. The new opcodes are more efficient than SLOAD and SSTORE as the original value is not loaded from storage, and no refunds are required. Possible use cases include re-entry locks, transfer fee contracts, and proxy call metadata. The proposal is currently being peer-reviewed.
anxious but wary
While the upgrade is eagerly anticipated, developers warn that there may be potential flaws or unexpected consequences. For example, implementing larger blocks may increase disk space requirements, which can lead to issues for nodes with limited storage capacity. Furthermore, high levels of historical data storage may lead to issues checking data availability and forgetting.
Overall, the Dancun upgrade represents a significant step forward in the development of the Ethereum blockchain. As the Ethereum community awaits the rollout of Dancun, developers continue to test and improve the proposed changes, ensuring that the upgrade will deliver the promised improvements without compromising the stability and security of the network.