- Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade has gone live on the Goerli testnet.
- Despite preparations, the testnet launch has not gone as many hoped.
- The timeline for when issues would be resolved remains unclear.
The long-anticipated Ethereum Dencun upgrade is now coming into full view. In line with timelines released in December 2023 , developers have launched the upgrade on the Goerli testnet , the soon-to-be-phased-out Ethereum sandbox for staking infrastructure and other protocol-level changes.
Despite months of preparation, however, the upgrade’s first testnet outing faced several roadblocks amid underwhelming participation.
Ethereum Dencun Upgrade Off To a Rough Start
The Dencun upgrade was released on the Goerli testnet around 6:32 UTC on January 17, as promised by developers in December 2023. The upgrade, however, did not get off to the start many would have hoped.
Ethereum Foundation protocol support member Tim Beiko reported that the upgrade failed to achieve finality, likely culminating in a chain split. Finality is assurance that crypto transactions cannot be reversed once executed.
Developers linked the challenges faced in the upgrade’s first outing to low network participation as more validators failed to upgrade their clients. Ethereum developer Terence Tsao pointed out the lack of sufficient participation ahead of the Goerli fork, predicting that finality could be lost as participation was estimated to be around 80%. For context, finality will likely be lost with 10% of validators offline.
Back to the Drawing Board?
Ethereum Foundation’s Beiko has noted that developers are investigating the hurdles faced during the Goerli fork. However, it remains to be seen when these issues will be resolved.
“Client teams are looking into it, but it's likely to a while to pin down + fix the issues. Keep an eye out for updates!,” he wrote .Developers still have to test out the Dencun upgrade on two more testnets, Sepolia and Holesky , before they can launch it on the mainnet. While the initial timeline had indicated that a Q1 launch of the upgrade was likely, it remains to be seen how recent snafus will affect these projections.
The most anticipated feature of the upgrade is EIP-4844, also known as proto-danksharding, which promises to make fees cheaper on Ethereum Layer 2 chains by reducing the cost of storing data on the network with blobs .
On the Flipside
- Developers had allocated a minimum of a week to test Dencun on each testnet.
- The upgrade had gone smoothly during the shadow forks of Goerli.
- The Dencun upgrade will be the last upgrade Goerli will see before it is phased out in favor of Holesky.
- The full danksharding vision tipped to address Ethereum’s scalability concerns is still years away.
Why This Matters
Recent hiccups during the Goerli fork may adversely affect Dencun mainnet launch projections.
