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Ethereum‘s long-awaited Dencun update failed to finalize within the desired timeframe after being deployed to the Goerli testnet today, 17 January 2024.
Just a test
The all-important Dencun upgrade, also known as EIP4844, went live on the Goerli Testnet earlier as announced by Ethereum Foundation community manager, Tim Beiko.
As per the final results, the upgrade was deployed at 6:32 UTC but failed to reach consensus and didn’t finalize on the testnet. Naturally, these issues are expected to be resolved over the next week or so.
According to Tim Beiko, this may have been a result of low participation numbers, as well as validators not upgrading their software.
Other roadblocks included a potential “chain split” as a result of clients having trouble synchronizing with each other, as well as other bugs.
Naturally, this is (somewhat) part of the plan. These upgrades need to be rigorously tested before deploying publicly as any error or bug could completely derail a network as big as Ethereum.
As this update is considered the biggest of them all, the dev team at Ethereum have chosen to cautiously implement EIP4844 through multiple phases on various testnets.
Goerli testnet
Dencun is the final upgrade for the Goerli testnet. After this, the next phase of the upgrade is set for 31 January 2024 on the Spolia testnet, which will then be followed by the activation of Dencun on the Holesky testnet on 7 February 2024.
Upon the smooth completion of each test run, the Ethereum Foundation is intent on launching it to the mainnet by the end of Q1 2024.
Danksharding with EIP4844
The Dencun update is believed to be the biggest upgrade to the Ethereum network since the Shapella upgrade in March 2023.
Technically a “hard fork”, EIP4844 or “proto-danksharding”, lets Ethereum nodes access and temporarily store off-chain data, greatly reducing storage demands.
This is a mechanism that will greatly increase the data capacity on Ethereum, improve throughput speeds, and reduce transaction costs for Layer-2 blockchains. Many Layer-2 networks act as an alternative for processing transactions on the Ethereum mainnet due to its high costs, low speeds, and limited capabilities.
Ethereum (ETH)
The ETH token appears unaffected by the blip as it continues to ride the $2,500 support level. At the time of writing, ETH 24-hour trading volumes presently sit at over $11billion.
Perhaps bolstered by anticipation of the update, Ethereum has outperformed Bitcoin (BTC) in the past 7-day period, gaining some 5.24% in contrast to BTC’s 6.15% losses.
