According to Blockworks, Ethereum client developers confirmed that the anticipated Dencun upgrade will not be implemented in a network hard fork before the end of 2023. This comes after the successful launch of the new Holešky testnet last month, which was already behind schedule. During an All Core Developers call, the consensus agreed with Prysm developer Potuz, who stated that there is no way the mainnet will fork in 2023. Potuz cited consistent consensus issues on the 10 developer networks (devnets) that have been testing the upgrade over the past few months, with none of them going well.
Ethereum clients are divided into two main camps, one for the execution layer and the other for the consensus layer. Execution layer client teams reported being in good shape for the upcoming testnets, while consensus layer client teams have faced challenges. Devnet 10 was launched this week, with plans for the execution clients to transition to a larger test on the Goerli testnet. However, Potuz is not comfortable with this idea, citing large and deep changes still being pushed in the Prysm branch, which currently runs 45% of the consensus layer clients.
The Dencun upgrade required advanced cryptography to ensure the Ethereum scaling improvement, known as Proto-Danksharding, remains secure. The KZG Ceremony involved multiple participants, each creating a secret and performing a computation to blend it with preceding contributions. This process results in the formation of a "structured reference string" (SRS), crucial for the KZG Commitments cryptographic scheme and integral to Proto-Danksharding. The final outcome of this chain of contributions is then put into the upgrade. The setup remains secure as long as there is at least one honest participant in the ceremony. After months of soliciting contributions, a total of 141,416 makes that all but certain.
