What the Dencun Fork Means for Ethereum Scalability

EIP-4844 will dramatically lower Ethereum L2 gas prices, bringing cost savings to the entire web3 ecosystem and unlocking new use cases for developers.

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3 mins

This morning the Dencun hard fork was successfully executed and is now live on Ethereum mainnet. With this upgrade in place, bringing a new type of data designed for L2s called “blobs,” the Ethereum community has yet again shown the world that decentralized coordination is possible.

The Dencun upgrade consists of nine Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs) with the headlining EIP being 4844, which introduces proto-danksharding to the network for the first time. It’s also the first step towards full sharding and data availability sampling in subsequent upgrades. Now that Dencun is complete, Ethereum has the cryptographic updates needed to continue to scale the network according to Vitalik’s rollup centric roadmap.

Lower gas prices on Ethereum L2 networks

One of the most important improvements the Dencun upgrade brings is lower transaction fees on Ethereum layer two networks. While it’s unclear exactly how much costs will be reduced, estimates are at least 10 times, if not more. This has massive implications for the entire ecosystem: L2 operators, developers, and end-users all benefit.

To help prepare the community for this upgrade, we sat down with EIP-4844 authors from the Ethereum Foundation and OP Labs, Dankrad Feist, Ansgar Dietrichs, and Protolambda to understand exactly what the Dencun fork means for Ethereum scalability.

Video What is the Dencun Upgrade? Watch Ethereum Foundation core devs, Dankrad Feist, Ansgar Dietrichs, and Tim Bieko explain the fork in detail, while highlighting the headlining feature, EIP-4844.

Video EIP-4844, part of the Dencun Upgrade, brings blob space to the Ethereum network and is the first step in implementing full sharding. Learn more about the importance of EIP-4844 and how it’s designed to drop L2 gas fees.

Video Data blobs, sometimes referred to as ‘blobs’, are a new type of data designed for L2 rollups in order for these networks to process and store data from Ethereum L1 more efficiently and economically.

Video Why will gas fees for L2s lower after EIP-4844? And by how much? Watch EIP-4844 authors Dankrad Feist and Protolambda explain how EIP-4844 makes L2 gas fees cheaper than they’ve ever been.

Video The major upgrades the Dencun fork enables for Ethereum are full sharding and data sampling. Hear from Ethereum Foundation core devs as they explain why Dencun is the first step to making Ethereum ultra-scalable in the future.

Celebrate Dencun with a commemorative Ethereum Evolved NFT

We invite all web3 enthusiasts to celebrate the Dencun upgrade by claiming the latest Ethereum, Evolved NFT. Consensys collaborates with a different artist for each Ethereum, Evolved NFT. For this collection, we partnered with Stefan Große Halbuer, also known as Plastic Pen from Münster, Germany.

The artwork that Stefan has created for the Ethereum, Evolved: Dencun NFT builds upon the unique visualization of the Ethereum ecosystem, where elements of nature and blockchain technology come together to depict epic, futuristic landscapes. For this artwork, Stefan meticulously animated blobs that represent the scalability the Dencun upgrade brings to Ethereum L2s.

Claim your Dencun NFT on Phosphor, a new and innovative NFT toolkit, here: Open Edition and Community Edition. To keep learning about this fork, visit the Dencun hub.