According to Ethereum developers, the Dencun upgrade will be launched on the mainnet on March 13. The ETH community is waiting with bated breath. What can they hope for?

During a coordination meeting, the Ethereum-developers March 13 as the key date for the long-awaited Dencun upgrade. The upgrade is considered an important step for further development of the proprietary blockchain.

Dencun contains the proto-thanksgiving function, which aims to lower transaction costs in layer 2 networks based on Ethereum. The efficiency and affordability of transactions in auxiliary networks will benefit from the creation of a dedicated data storage space.

The upgrade will be activated once the blockchain slot reaches 8626176, which will be on March 13 at 13:55 UTC. This has yet to be confirmed and ratified by the developers via GitHub.

Ethereum developers have conducted three rigorous tests to ensure the smooth operation of Dencun on the mainnet, with the most recent deployment on the Holesky testnet served as the final validation.

Proto-Danksharding represents the first phase of a much broader technical advancement known as Danksharding. Developers are actively working on this feature to scale the Ethereum blockchain and improve its functionality.

Technical challenges have delayed the upgrade from late 2023 to early 2024, highlighting the complexity of implementing large-scale changes in a decentralized ecosystem like Ethereum.

Looking to the future, Ethereum is already planning its next hard fork, Prague/Electra. This will include so-called "glue trees," which could allow nodes to store large amounts of data while maintaining the ability to validate blocks effectively.