Ethereum Developers Set Timeline for Final ‘Dencun’ Testnet Upgrades

Ethereum developers planning for the blockchain's biggest upgrade in a year, known as Dencun, have confirmed in a blog post the dates for making the changes on two key test networks – theoretically the last steps before going live on the main network.

Dencun is a major upgrade or “hard fork” planned for the Ethereum blockchain that will enable “proto-danksharding,” a technical feature that will decrease the cost of transactions on layer 2s, as well as enable cheaper data available on the blockchain.

Before it is triggered on the main blockchain, developers will run through a dress rehearsal of the protocol changes on the Sepolia and Holesky test networks (testnets), on Jan. 30 and Feb. 7.

The announcement follows the upgrade that took place last week on the Goerli testnet, which successfully went live despite some minor hiccups. Dencun will be triggered on Sepolia at 22:51 UTC and at epoch 132608.

If all goes according to plan, the final test for Dencun will occur on Holesky on Feb. 7 at 11:34 UTC, at epoch 950272.

After that developers will ink in a date for Dencun to hit Ethereum’s mainnet, now targeted for end of February or early March.

“If running a node on either network, now's the time to update it,” Tim Beiko, the protocol support lead at the Ethereum Foundation wrote on X.

Read more: Ethereum’s Dencun Upgrade Goes Live, But Fails to Finalize on Testnet