Denkun’s update goes live on the Ethereum mainnet

The Denkun update was successfully released on the Ethereum mainnet at 1:55 pm UTC on March 13.

The most anticipated hard fork after the Denkun merger is expected to significantly reduce the transaction fees of Layer-2 networks and improve Ethereum's overall scalability.

While Denkun's upgrade is a step in the right direction, it doesn't fix all the weaknesses of Layer-2 solutions, said Arthur Brettman, founder of Tezos Blockchain. He told Cointelegraph.

“Denkun's update will do the minimum work to extend the use of aggregated data on Ethereum, which should reduce the transaction costs of these L2 solutions. This is a step in the right direction, but ultimately, blockchains built on Ethereum will remain too limited and require high levels of centralization.” They are forced.

Denkun's launch comes nearly a year after the April 2023 Shanghai upgrade, which allowed network participants to withdraw Ether (ETH) for the first time since the network transitioned following the merger.

Denkun's hard fork consists of nine different Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). The name of the update is that Ethereum's execution layer combines the Cancun update and the Deneb update on the consensus layer. The first part, Cancun, focuses on improving how transactions are managed and the performance layer, while the second part, Deneb, aims to improve consensus, which refers to how network participants agree on the state of the blockchain.

The introduction of data blobs at EIP-4844, also known as proto-danksharding, is one of the most notable developments, according to James Woo, CEO and founder of Digital Financial Group. He told Cointelegraph.

“[Proto-danksharding] It aims to reduce layer-2 transaction fees by enhancing data availability, a critical step in establishing Ethereum as a scalable settlement layer.

However, according to a March 6 report by Max Waddington, a research analyst at Fidelity Investments, the proposed fee reduction will not affect Ethereum mainnet users. wrote:

“In the short term, users who want to take advantage of this payment change will have to sacrifice some decentralization and security by transacting on L2s instead of Ethereum. This will certainly encourage many users to link assets elsewhere. However, for application-specific purposes, transacting on Ethereum We still strongly believe that L2 platforms will continue to grow as the best option (especially for high value transactions) in the medium term.

Gas fees on the Ethereum mainnet remain high, at over 72 gwei. According to Etherscan data, the average exchange costs users $86.15 per gas bill, while non-vulnerable token sales average $145.60 per gas.

Related: CoinShares Acquires Valkyrie's ETF Business