Upgrade Dencun of Ethereum Scheduled for Late February 2024

Ethereum developers have outlined an anticipated schedule to roll out the Dencun upgrade across various testnets, culminating in the mainnet launch by late February 2024.

Upgrade Dencun of Ethereum Scheduled for Late February 2024

At a recent bi-weekly meeting, Ethereum developers tentatively set the deployment schedule for the Dencun upgrade as follows:

Deploy to Goerli testnet on January 17, 2024;
Deploy to Sepolia testnet on January 31, 2024;
Deploy to Holesky testnet on February 7, 2024;
Finally, deploy to the mainnet by late February 2024.
Tim Beiko, protocol support lead at the Ethereum Foundation, noted that this schedule is subject to change if issues arise. The team also plans to release a detailed blog post following the January 8, 2024, fork to inform stakeholders about the upcoming first testnet phase.

Dencun marks a significant upgrade for Ethereum following Shanghai in April 2023. Initially planned for late 2023, technical challenges have led to repeated delays in the upgrade process.

During a meeting in late October, developer Potuz complained that out of more than 10 private Dencun test attempts, "none went smoothly."

Additionally, the Goerli test network will be "retired" approximately one month after the mainnet. Subsequently, developers are encouraged to transition to Sepolia, while infrastructure providers are advised to switch to the new Holesky testnet.

Dencun is a portmanteau of Deneb and Cancun. The upgrade brings significant changes to Ethereum, including reduced transaction data storage costs, improved cross-chain and staking pool designs, minor updates to the EVM, changes in data storage structure within blocks, and the removal of code segments allowing for smart contract cancellation.