The recent Dencun upgrade on the Ethereum network has seemingly achieved its goal of addressing high transaction fees, as evidenced by a substantial decrease in average transaction fees across Ethereum’s layer-2 (L2) networks.
After much anticipation, the Dencun upgrade was officially implemented on the Ethereum mainnet on March 13, confirmed by Ethereum Foundation Protocol Support Tim Beiko.
Data from Dune indicates that L2 protocols utilizing blob transactions have experienced significant reductions in transaction fees following the implementation of Dencun. Platforms like Base, Optimism, and Arbitrum have notably witnessed considerable drops in fees shortly after the upgrade.
For instance, Optimism’s average transaction fee dropped from $1.587 to $0.035, and Base saw a decrease from $1.927 to $0.035. Zora also experienced a significant fee reduction from $1.423 to $0.003.
Similarly, Starknet observed significant drops, with the average cost for in-app swaps on Argent X plummeting from $6.82 to $0.04 after the Dencun upgrade. The Starknet Foundation has also pledged to introduce a mechanism for further fee reduction in tandem with Dencun.
The Dencun upgrade, which combines the “Cancun” and “Deneb” updates, is part of Ethereum’s roadmap known as “The Surge,” primarily aimed at enhancing the network’s scalability.
Introducing the concept of “proto-danksharding” (EIP-4844), the upgrade aims to optimize gas fees and improve data management for layer-2 networks and rollups.
Ultimately, Dencun aims to decrease transaction costs and increase throughput across the Ethereum ecosystem, primarily through “shard blob transactions” introduced with EIP-4844.
While over 4,000 blobs have been utilized within the Ethereum ecosystem, Arbitrum plans to implement blob transactions with the launch of its ArbOS hypervisor. However, Blast experienced a one-hour downtime due to issues associated with the Dencun upgrade.