The Dencun upgrade of Ethereum was launched as scheduled today on the Goerli testnet, but encountered some challenges. Tim Beiko, a core developer, pointed out that although the upgrade has been implemented, there are few participating validators and a chain split issue has occurred, which is currently being investigated.
(Background: Ethereum Goerli testnet “Launched the Cancun upgrade on 1/17”, mainnet expected by the end of February)
On December 22 last year, Tim Beiko, a core developer of Ethereum, announced on X that the next major upgrade of Ethereum, Dencun, will first be launched on the Goerli testnet on January 17, while the Sepolia and Holesky testnets are tentatively scheduled for January 30 and February 7 respectively. If the upgrades on the three testnets go smoothly, the mainnet Dencun upgrade is expected to arrive as early as the end of February.
As scheduled, Tim Beiko announced today on X that the Ethereum Goerli testnet has completed the Dencun hard fork upgrade. He stated that although there are few validators participating in the upgrade, this is within expectations, and some blobs have already been sent on the network. However, most of the blobs currently being sent are empty.
Blobs are a new transaction format introduced through EIP-4844 (protodanksharding) for “temporary” storage of transaction data (blobs can be deleted after 18 days), enhancing Ethereum’s data storage capacity and potentially further reducing transaction fees on the second layer network.
Regarding this, Tim Beiko stated that if there are no more validators participating in the upgrade, “non-finality testing” may be conducted to understand how the network will operate with low validator participation.
In addition, Tim Beiko pointed out that there is currently a chain split issue, which means that different nodes (or validators) have different versions of transaction history on the blockchain. The development team is investigating this issue and will provide further details in the future.
In summary, the Dencun upgrade encountered some challenges on the Goerli testnet, including low participation and chain split issues, which require further testing and investigation by the development team.
Goerli testnet upgrade receives significant attention
The Goerli testnet upgrade has received significant attention because Goerli has the highest number of participants and network load among the testnets, second only to the Ethereum mainnet. Therefore, successfully launching the Dencun upgrade on Goerli signifies that the official launch of the Dencun upgrade on the Ethereum mainnet is getting closer.
Previously, some developers were concerned about the short upgrade interval between the Goerli and Sepolia testnets, which could lead to upgrade failures due to insufficient time to observe issues. In response, X account Lightclients stated that the Ethereum core developer execution meeting (ACDE)#179 is scheduled for tomorrow (18), and if any issues occur on the Goerli testnet within 24 hours after the upgrade, developers will have the opportunity to review the subsequent schedule.
Furthermore, Dencun will be the last upgrade on the Goerli testnet. After the mainnet launches the Dencun upgrade, client and Ethereum Foundation testing teams will stop supporting the Goerli testnet. More information can be found in the Ethereum Foundation article.