Ethereum’s next update

What is Dencun?

With the upcoming Dencun upgrade, Ethereum will adopt EIP-4844, commonly called proto-danksharding. This upgrade introduces type-3 transactions (blobs), bringing new opportunities and new complexity for Layer 2 networks to optimize how they settle to the base layer.

What is Dencun

View blobs in real-time

View blobs enter the mempool and land on-chain with the Ethernow Transaction Explorer.

Estimate blob gas fee

Blocknative will be adding blob gas fee estimation to the existing gas APIs.

Research blob history

The Mempool Data Archive will store blob data for L2s and researchers to use.

How will Ethereum's Dencun Upgrade Affect Me?

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for the Dencun upgrade, it will happen seamlessly and users will not have to change anyway in which they interact with either Ethereum or any of its layer 2 networks.

One positive impact is that you should see lower gas prices once the update is complete. Layer 2's should gradually shift to using proto-danksharding which will result in gas prices settling at lower levels.

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Is there any way to watch the Dencun upgrade live and in real time?

Yes! The upgrade will happen at 13/03/2024 13:55:35 UTC at Beacon epoch 269568 (Beacon slot 8626176).

Ethernow.xyz is a real time observability platform for Ethereum and you will be able to watch blocks and transactions come into the mempool at the exact time as Dencun is rolled out.

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Observe Ethereum in real-time with Ethernow

Gas

How Self-Built Blocks Unintentionally Introduce Base Fee Volatility

Thank You to Toni Wahrstätter, Justin Drake, Barnabé Monnot, Julian Ma and others who contributed to the discourse and provided feedback on the piece.

Blair Marshall

Developer

No More Decoding Headaches: Announcing The Blocknative Decoding API

For builders working with Layer 2 (L2) solutions, one challenge has consistently slowed development progress: decoding the complex data streams used for transaction settlement onto the L1 chain. This process is not only time-consuming but also requires significant technical expertise.

Blocknative

Gas

Blob Inversion: An Investigation Into the June 20th 2024 Blob Spike

Thank you to all those who provided input and review on this piece, including Julian Ma, Soubhik Deb, Barnabe Monnot, Max Resnick, Mallesh Pai, Davide Crapis, Ed Felten, Roberto Bayardo, Potusz, and the Blocknative team. On Thursday, June 20, 2024, the Blob Base Fee spiked to 8,000 GWEI, making blobdata (type 3 transactions) more expensive than calldata (type 2 transactions) for the second time since the Dencun upgrade. During the inversion event, L2s incurred an estimated overpayment of ~166 ETH (approximately $550,000 USD) by including data in batches sent to Ethereum as blobdata instead of calldata. What happened? Why did we see another spike similar to the blobscription craze?