Key Points
- The Ethereum blockchain's layer-2 protocols will benefit from significantly reduced rollup costs due to the Dencun hard fork.
- The full benefits might not be immediately apparent to end-users, with complete implementation by rollup protocols expected to take several weeks.
The Ethereum blockchain is poised for a significant upgrade, with layer-2 protocols set to experience a substantial decrease in rollup costs when the Dencun hard fork is implemented.
However, David Silverman, the VP of Product at Polygon Labs, cautions that the full benefits may not be immediately noticeable to end-users.
Understanding The Dencun Hard Fork
According to Silverman, the Dencun hard fork, which includes several improvement proposals (EIPs), will require a few weeks for full implementation by rollup protocols.
He estimates that in about one and a half to two months, every layer-2 protocol that wants to utilise blob space as a rollup will have transitioned, allowing users to experience the full benefits.
The Dencun hard fork is a combination of nine different EIPs, taking its name from the Cancun upgrade of Ethereum’s execution layer and the Deneb upgrade on the consensus layer.
A key aspect of the hard fork is EIP-4844, which changes how Ethereum rollups store data on the mainnet.
Several layer-2 rollups aggregate and process transactions off-chain, submitting a summary proof of these transactions to the Ethereum blockchain.
As Silverman explains, Ethereum currently only has one type of storage - call data storage on the execution layer, which is permanent.
Whether it's an image for an NFT or transaction data for a rollup, all Ethereum nodes must store that state indefinitely.
EIP-4844 introduces a new way for rollups to add cheaper data to blocks by introducing the blob space.
Previously, using call data for storage was expensive as all Ethereum nodes had to process the data that lives on-chain indefinitely.
Proto-danksharding, which is named after the researchers who proposed EIP-4844, allows rollups to send and attach data blobs to blocks.
This data is inaccessible to the Ethereum Virtual Machine and is automatically deleted after a fixed period of time, estimated to be 18 days.
Since blobs are stored temporarily, they're significantly cheaper for rollups and provide the same security guarantees.
Despite the excitement surrounding proto-danksharding in the Ethereum community, Silverman warns that the true impact will only be realised once Dencun is implemented on the mainnet.
While various layer-2 developers have claimed rollup costs could be reduced by 10 to 50 times, Silverman stresses that each rollup will need to undergo its own governance and upgrade procedures to change their contracts and move from pointing to call data to pointing to the new blob space.
Polygon has been diligently working to expedite its own implementation of EIP-4844, and conversations with counterparts at Optimism, zkSync, and Arbitrum indicate that layer-2 protocols are eager to take advantage of the hard fork as quickly as possible.
Dencun also signifies Ethereum's shift towards a layer-2-centric scaling approach, with Ethereum planning to "slow down and ossify" its core components while leaving innovation and user-level focus to layer-2 protocols.
Major rollup players have started to coordinate among themselves with the formation of Roll Call, a platform where these layer-2 protocols meet, discuss, and produce improvement proposals.
While Dencun might not immediately impact rollup costs, Silverman does expect some excitement when the hard fork is finalised.
Developers at ETH Denver have even announced plans to conduct ETH blob Ordinals to clog up the blob space at launch.
As rollups gradually implement EIP-4844, the ecosystem will start to see the true impact of proto-danksharding.
Silverman also believes that as more layer-2 protocols join the blob space, the impact of its cost reduction will gradually lessen.
