In the recent Ethereum core developers’ meeting, they announced that the DenCun upgrade would be delayed until 2024 instead of the originally planned late this year. This delay is due to the fact that the upgrade has not yet been introduced on Ethereum’s testnets like Goerli, Sepolia, and Holesky, and the Devconnect conference is approaching.
This week, Ethereum went through its 10th private Devnet test phase. However, it seems that the results weren’t as expected. Developer Potuz commented on the 10 testnets, saying that “none of the networks are running smoothly.”
Devnet 11 is already in the works, but the transition to public testnets may continue to be postponed beyond Devconnect because developers feel uncertain about deploying the entire client on the testnet, believing that there are still significant adjustments needed in the system.
DenCun is the next important upgrade for Ethereum after Shanghai/Shapella was deployed in April 2023. DenCun, a combination of Deneb and Cancun, will bring significant changes to Ethereum, including:
- EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding): A proposal to reduce the cost of storing transaction data.
- EIP-4788: Improvements in cross-chain bridge design and staking pools.
- EIP-5656: Updates to Ethereum Virtual Machine.
- EIP-1153: Proposed changes to data storage structure within blocks.
- EIP-6780: Removal of code segments allowing for smart contract self-destruct.
However, the deployment of DenCun depends on various factors such as the readiness of source code on consensus and execution layers of Ethereum, as well as the readiness of many client teams – all of which need to be tested on public testnets and require a significant amount of time for testing.