The largest upgrade of Ethereum since it transitioned from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS) 18 months ago, called “Dencun,” is set to launch on Wednesday night in Taiwan time, according to CoinDesk, an overseas blockchain media outlet. CoinDesk has summarized five things to know about this upgrade.
The Gasless Era of Ethereum
Dencun will make Layer 2 transactions on Ethereum super cheap – almost costless – to the point where almost all activities on Ethereum will be migrated to these networks. There may even be projects or protocols that incentivize usage by covering the gas fees users would typically have to pay (which is cheaper than paying marketing costs!).
A Major Milestone
Dencun is the largest upgrade for Ethereum since “The Merge” in September 2022 and is also a step towards achieving Ethereum’s ultimate goal of supporting hundreds of different rollups and second-layer scaling solutions, with the potential to process millions of transactions per second.
Long-Awaited
Dencun will introduce the concept of “Proto-Danksharding,” which has been theorized for a long time (originally mentioned by Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin in 2019). It will change the way Ethereum stores data. Unlike the costly and computationally intensive practice of storing all data directly on the Ethereum mainnet’s immutable execution layer, Dencun will introduce a new, temporary data storage method called “blobs,” which is more cost-effective. Although “blobs” may sound like an informal term, it is actually a common concept in computer science and has similar data management implementations in programming languages like JavaScript and Python.
Origin of Proto-Danksharding
Proto-Danksharding is named after two Ethereum researchers, Dankrad Feist and Proto Lambda, who proposed this change. The name is fitting because Proto Danksharding is a necessary condition for the full-scale rollout of Danksharding, which will further simplify the concept of data storage but will take several more years to accomplish. Furthermore, although the term includes “sharding,” both Danksharding and Proto-Danksharding do not follow the traditional approach of partitioning databases into smaller parts, which was the original plan for Ethereum’s scalability. In a sense, Dencun’s introduction of Proto-Danksharding deviates significantly from Ethereum’s initial roadmap, but it was chosen because it is easier to implement.
The Largest Trusted Setup Ceremony in History
The first step in establishing Proto-Danksharding took place in 2022 during the world’s largest Trusted Setup ceremony. Several researchers, including Aniket Kate, Gregory M. Zaverucha, and Ian Goldberg, were named as the creators of a crucial component that made it possible to store blobs on Ethereum. Tens of thousands of participants took part in the KZG ceremony, which was a way for the Ethereum community to collectively generate the secret random string data required for proto-danksharding to function.
Source:
CoinDesk
Live Streaming of Dencun Upgrade
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