Ethereum’s Upcoming Dencun Upgrade Set to Make Layer-2 Blockchains More Secure: All You Need to Know

The Ethereum blockchain's total locked value stands at an estimated $40 billion (roughly Rs. 3,32,144 crore). Recognised as the most commercial blockchain in the world, the developers managing Ethereum keep on their toes to ensure that the usability and security of the blockchain is top notch and subsequently beneficial to the Web3 ecosystem. This year in March, Ethereum is getting ready to undergo a major update that will make Layer-2 blockchains that are built on it more cost efficient and secure.

Called the Dencun upgrade, this change will slash the requirement for data for maintaining Ethereum-based Layer-2s while also reducing the cost transactions that are processed via Layer-2 blockchains built atop the mainnet.

This enhancement of scalability and efficiency for Ethereum-based Layer-2 blockchains is technically being referred to as ‘proto-danksharding'. Another name for this update is also Cancun-Deneb.

The Ethereum blockchain is slated to undergo the update process at around 7:25pm IST (1:55pm UTC) on March 13. The update will be triggered when the Ethereum blockchain touches slot 8626176, as per a Coindesk report.

Along with improving Ethereum's scalability feature, the Dencun upgrade will also finetune the blockchain's existing security measures. The developers and users of dApps built on Ethereum-based Layer-2s will benefit from the reduction in gas prices linked to this update – thus increasing activities on the blockchain and expanding use cases.

The crypto community is talking about this upcoming Ethereum update on social media, flooding platforms like X with posts related to #DencunUpdate.

In the backdrop of this upcoming upgrade, Ether prices are expected to witness a surge in the coming weeks. At present, ETH is trading at $2,498 (roughly Rs. 2.07 lakh).

Prior to Dencun, Ethereum underwent two other major upgrades – The Merge and Shanghai in the years 2022 and 2023, respectively.

While the Merge upgrade converted Ethereum's energy-consuming Proof-of-Work (PoW) mining model to a more efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS) model, the Shanghai upgrade gave miners the ability to withdraw their staked Ether, bringing more liquidity to the network.