Dencun upgrade: a key step towards Ethereum 2.0

Author: Gu Yi; Source: The SeeDAO

Dencun (also known as Cancun-Deneb) will be upgraded and is expected to be launched on UTC 2024-03- 13 13:55:35 Completed deployment on the Ethereum mainnet. This upgrade not only opens the "The Surge" era of Ethereum, but also comprehensively improves the scalability, efficiency and security of the network. As an important milestone in the development of Ethereum, the Dencun upgrade aims to solve the network's long-term problems of high transaction fees and low throughput by introducing a series of improvement proposals (EIPs).

Origin of the name

The name of this upgrade is "Cancun -Deneb" combines improvements in two aspects: the Cancun upgrade focuses on improving the performance of Ethereum's execution layer, while the Deneb upgrade focuses on improving the consensus layer. Before the merger, Ethereum was run independently by two parts: the execution layer and the consensus layer. The execution layer is responsible for the execution of smart contract logic, where the actual calculation of transactions occurs, maintaining network status and executing EVM code. The consensus layer ensures that transactions and smart contracts are verified through PoS staking to achieve consensus among nodes. After the merger, the so-called beacon chain is formed, which is Ethereum 2.0. The merged Ethereum execution layer and consensus layer communicate with each other through the engine API interface, allowing information exchange and coordination between the two layers.

DencunUpgraded core

With the rapid growth of areas such as DeFi and NFT, network congestion and high gas fees have become significant challenges. While Rollups technology has significantly reduced fees for many users by processing transactions off-chain, it still faces challenges in data availability and cost efficiency. In response to these problems, among the nine EIPs packaged and upgraded by Dencun, EIP-4844 is the core. It provides a more efficient and lower-cost temporary solution by introducing a new transaction format-transaction carrying blobs.

This new transaction design allows the inclusion of large amounts of data that, while not directly accessible by the EVM, can be accessed by its commitments. The main goal of this design is to provide a temporary scaling path for trustless scaling solutions like Rollups while ensuring compatibility with future fully sharded technologies. For solutions such as Optimism, Arbitrum and ZK Rollups, this means significantly lower transaction fees compared to Ethereum itself.

The core of EIP-4844 is to significantly reduce transaction fees and control by introducing blob transactions that are compatible with future sharding specifications and establishing an independent fee market. its usage. It does not increase the burden on Rollups developers, but also reduces the Gas cost of calldata and introduces the sharded data format in advance. It is a temporary expansion solution.

The design considers the balance between the current implementation and the work required for full sharding technology, covering new transaction types, execution layer logic and consensus verification logic and many other aspects, aiming to pave the way for the implementation of complete sharding. In addition, it adjusts how Rollups operate, such as by putting Rollup block data into blobs to reduce costs and ensure that the data is available once. Forward compatibility has been improved through the use of versioned hashes and precompiled return data, and Blob base fee update rules have been introduced to regulate the fee market.

EIP-4844 attempts to reduce the immediate impact on the network by limiting the total size of blobs in each block, and is expected to gradually increase through network upgrades in the future this capacity. EIP-4844 allows "blobs" to be stored on Ethereum at a lower cost until longer-term solutions such as data sharding are implemented. Such a design would reduce pressure on the network and provide an intermediate step towards Ethereum’s scalability and performance improvements.

DencunBenefits of upgrading

The Dencun upgrade is expected to bring a number of important benefits to the Ethereum network and its ecosystem, solving some of the key issues currently facing the network and broadening access for new users and new use cases, thereby enhancing the potential of the network ability.

First, the Dencun upgrade will significantly increase Ethereum's network throughput through raw danksharding, providing temporary additional data storage space for Layer 2 Rollups, thereby increasing every second Transaction volume has increased significantly.

Secondly, this upgrade will effectively reduce gas costs. Powered by original danksharding, Layer 2 aggregated gas fees will drop significantly, meaning the cost of trading tokens on Optimistic L2 rollups such as Optimism and Arbitrum One will be significantly reduced, allowing the Ethereum network to more efficiently communicate with the world. Payment giants such as Visa and Mastercard compete. According to data from Superchain Savings Estimator, after the implementation of EIP-4844, the gas fee for underlying L2 token transactions is expected to decrease from $0.58 to $0.01.

Security will also be strengthened by the Dencun upgrade, especially by implementing EIP-6780 to disable the SELFDESTRUCT code, thereby reducing the risk of smart contract termination and enhancing security. Protection of User Data and Their Assets.

In addition, the upgrade will improve cross-chain communication through EIP-4788, and is expected to optimize the functions of cross-chain bridges and stake pools, allowing different blockchain networks to Enables seamless and secure interactions.

Dencun upgrade will also optimize data storage. EIP-1153 will introduce new opcodes that are not stored by Ethereum's global state, thereby optimizing the use of block space and making the use of gas fees more efficient.

Finally, this upgrade sets the stage for full danksharding, the ultimate goal of Ethereum's "The Surge", which is expected to achieve more than 100% processing per second. Capacity for 100,000 transactions. Although it will take several years and multiple network upgrades to fully implement danksharding, original danksharding will serve as an important basic step as part of the Dencun upgrade.

All in all, the Dencun upgrade not only significantly improves the processing power of the Ethereum network, reduces transaction costs, but also enhances security through a series of carefully designed improvements. properties, improved cross-chain communication, and optimized data management, laying a solid foundation for the long-term development of the Ethereum network.