By
Godfrey Benjamin
April 26th, 2024
The Ethereum Dencun will implement proto-danksharding, a concept initially theorized by Buterin in 2019, altering the data storage mechanism of Ethereum.
The Ethereum blockchain network is undergoing one of its biggest upgrades for the first time in 18 months after The Merge’s release in September 2022. The Ethereum Dencun upgrade seeks to enhance the scalability, efficiency, and security of the Ethereum network by implementing Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs).
Reportedly, the Dencun Upgrade will majorly benefit the Ethereum-based Layer 2 scaling solutions. Besides, Dencun will also alter the method of data storage on Ethereum, rendering it notably more accessible and cost-effective for recording layer 2 transactions. Let’s take a look at the top five improvements that the Ethereum Dencun network will bring.
Ethereum Gas-Fee Reduction
The Ethereum Dencun upgrade will drastically reduce the cost of L2 transactions, making them almost negligible. This can potentially lead to a shift of nearly all Ethereum activity to these networks. Some projects or protocols might even incentivize usage by covering the gas fees typically borne by users.
Supporting Rollups
As said Dencun marks the most significant Ethereum upgrade since The Merge in September 2022. It represents a crucial step towards Ethereum’s overarching objective of accommodating numerous rollups and secondary scaling layers, eventually enabling the processing of millions of transactions per second
Introducing Pro-Danksharding
The Ethereum Dencun will implement Proto-Danksharding, a concept initially theorized by Buterin in 2019, altering the data storage mechanism of Ethereum. Instead of storing all data directly on the Ethereum mainnet’s immutable execution layer, which is costly and resource-intensive, Dencun will introduce a new, temporary method of storing “blobs” of data, which is more cost-effective. “Blobs” is a familiar concept in computer science, also found in programming languages such as Javascript and Python.
Understanding Pro-Danksharding
Proto-Danksharding derives its name from two Ethereum researchers, Dankrad Feist and Proto Lambda, who proposed the concept. This nomenclature is apt as Proto Danksharding serves as a precursor to the full implementation of Danksharding, a development anticipated to occur several years later.
Danksharding aims to further simplify data storage. Despite containing “sharding” in the name, neither Danksharding nor Proto-Danksharding follows the conventional method of “sharding”, which involves dividing a database into smaller segments, as commonly understood in computer science.
Originally, sharding was the proposed solution for scaling Ethereum. The introduction of Proto-Danksharding with Dencun represents a significant deviation from Ethereum’s initial roadmap, chosen for its ease of implementation.
Pro-Danksharding Setup
In 2022, the initial phase of establishing Proto-Danksharding commenced with the world’s largest “Trusted Setup” ceremony. Named after the contributing researchers Aniket Kate, Gregory M. Zaverucha, and Ian Goldberg, who devised a critical component enabling Blob storage on Ethereum, the event, now known as the KZG Ceremony, saw participation from tens of thousands within the Ethereum community. It served as a collective effort to generate a secret random data string essential for the functioning of proto-danksharding.
