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The Dencun upgrade has now been set for launch on the Ethereum mainnet on March 13. It will introduce proto-danksharding and blobs aimed at driving down transaction costs on Ethereum layer 2s.
The hard fork is scheduled to take place at 13:55:35 pm UTC, Ethereum infrastructure firm Nethermind <a href="https://twitter.com/NethermindEth/status/1755599581096902889" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">revealed</a> in a Feb. 8 X post. The timing equates to approximately slot 8626176 on the Ethereum network, Ethereum core developer Tim Beiko added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
 Blobs are coming to mainnet at slot 8626176 .oO— timbeiko.eth ☀️ (@TimBeiko) <a href="https://twitter.com/TimBeiko/status/1755597708520501672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2024</a>
</blockquote> 
The date was decided by Ethereum developers in an “AllCoreDevs” <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-dencun-upgrade-launch-date-scheduled-next-week">call on Feb. 8</a> following the successful deployment of <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-dencun-upgrade-eyes-mainnet-after-holesky-testnet#:~:text=Dencun,%20which%20combines%20the%20Cancun,on%20Dec.%201,%202020">Dencun on the Holesky testnet</a> on Feb. 7.
Proto-danksharding is a sharding design that implements “blob-carrying transactions” to create more block space on Ethereum layer 2s.
Blob-carrying transactions are like normal transactions except that they carry an extra piece of data.
Proto-danksharding will limit the number of blobs in each block to 16, with each being no larger than 128 KB, <a href="https://www.blocknative.com/blog/proto-danksharding-and-eip-4844" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">according</a> to Blocknative. It is expected to add about 2 megabytes of block space.
Both optimistic and zero-knowledge rollups will be able to leverage the extra data space to post commitments to transaction data on-chain and make the actual data available in data blobs instead of calldata.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
 Transacting on an Ethereum rollup is about to get a whole lot cheaper. Ethereum's next major upgrade, Dencun (EIP-4844) will be deployed live on Ethereum Mainnet on Wednesday, March 13th, at 13:55 UTC. The blobs are coming!— liam (@daddysether) <a href="https://twitter.com/daddysether/status/1755695193591038124?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2024</a>
</blockquote> 
One of Ethereum’s creators, Vitalik Buterin, has said that Ethereum will fail&nbsp;<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-fails-without-these-three-transitions">without sufficient scaling</a> infrastructure to&nbsp;<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-gas-fees-cool-down-after-may-memecoin-frenzy">make transactions cheap</a>.
“Ethereum fails because each transaction costs $3.75 ($82.48 if we have another bull run), and every product aiming for the mass market inevitably forgets about the chain and adopts centralized workarounds for everything,” Buterin said in June 2023.
A successful implementation of Dencun on the Ethereum mainnet could&nbsp;<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ethereum-devs-10x-lower-rollup-costs-dencun-upgrade-testnets">even lower rollup costs</a> by up to 10 times, according to Philippe Schommers, head of infrastructure at Gnosis, who recently spoke with Cointelegraph.
Related:&nbsp;<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/eth-could-reach-27k-bull-cycle-expert-predicts">ETH could reach $27K this bull cycle, expert predicts</a>
Dencun combines the Cancun and Deneb upgrades and is seen as the most significant upgrade of Ethereum <a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ether-price-cracks-2k-amid-staking-withdrawals-enabled-post-shapella-upgrade">since the Shapella upgrade</a><a href="https://cointelegraph.com/news/ether-price-cracks-2k-amid-staking-withdrawals-enabled-post-shapella-upgrade"></a> in April 2023, which allowed the unstaking of Ether (<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/ethereum-price">ETH</a>)&nbsp;from the Beacon Chain for the first time since the proof-of-stake chain launched on Dec. 1, 2020.
Magazine: ‘<a href="https://cointelegraph.com/magazine/account-abstraction-supercharges-ethereum-wallets-dummies-guide/">Account abstraction’ supercharges Ethereum wallets: Dummies guide</a>

Make Ethereum cheap again: ‘Blobs’ to be launched via Dencun upgrade on March 13

Cointelegraph

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