“Ethereum’s highly anticipated Dencun upgrade encounters unexpected delays and consensus challenges, underscoring the intricacies of blockchain development and the importance of reaching consensus among developers.”
Ethereum client developers have announced that the highly anticipated Dencun upgrade will not be implemented through a network hard fork before the end of 2023 due to consensus challenges.
During the recent All Core Developers call, consensus layer client teams expressed their discomfort with forking the Goerli on the mainnet due to the numerous tasks that still need to be completed. This includes implementing changes to the codebase from Prysm, an Ethereum client that is responsible for running 45% of the consensus layer clients.
Prysm developer Potuz voiced the prevailing sentiment among developers, stating that “there is no way we are forking mainnet in 2023.” He also expressed concerns about the significant and ongoing changes being made to the branch, making him “definitely not comfortable at all having a full client fork on Goerli.”
This decision comes after a series of consensus issues surfaced during the testing of the ten developer networks (devnets) over the past few months. None of the devnets met the desired performance level, raising concerns about the possibility of executing the upgrade on time.
Despite the delay, the Holešky testnet was successfully launched last month. However, it became apparent that the Dencun update might not receive thorough testing if it was rolled out by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Tim Beiko, who led the Ethereum core protocol meetings, predicted that the hard fork might take place in the latter half of November. However, no specific date was set for the fork. Beiko explained that the teams were not ready by the suggested dates of November 6 or 13 and wanted to avoid a fork during the @EFDevconnect event.
Given this timeline, Beiko suggested that the mainnet release might happen after the holidays. He emphasized that this plan is not set in stone, but it provides a path towards the mainnet release.
Overall, the Dencun upgrade faces challenges and delays due to consensus issues and the need for thorough testing. Ethereum developers are working to ensure a successful implementation of the upgrade, but it is unlikely to happen before the end of 2023.
