Ethereum Upgrade | Developers Confirm Mainnet "Cancun Upgrade" Will Not Be Implemented This Year

Ethereum developers confirmed at a recent core developer meeting that the planned "Dencun upgrade" originally scheduled for implementation by the end of 2023 will not take place this year. Cancun upgrade (Dencun).

Did the Holešky Testnet Delay Cause This?

According to a report by Blockworks, when the launch of the new Holešky testnet was delayed last month, it was widely believed that the Cancun upgrade was unlikely to happen before the end of the year. At today's developer meeting, Prysm developer Potuz explicitly stated that a mainnet hard fork upgrade is not possible in 2023. He mentioned at the meeting that in the past few months, 10 developer networks devnets set up for testing upgrades have encountered ongoing consensus issues, none of which have been successful.

Ethereum Consensus Layer Upgrade

Ethereum developers are mainly divided into two camps, the "execution layer" and the "consensus layer." The name of a hard fork upgrade often reflects this distinction, with the consensus layer development team using the name of the city where Ethereum's main conference Devcon is held (such as Cancun), while the execution layer client developers choose star names (such as Deneb), hence the name of this upgrade is "Dencun."

While the development of the consensus layer faces obstacles, the execution layer developers have indicated that their progress is relatively smooth. The execution layer client team reported that they are ready to conduct larger tests on the Goerli testnet. However, Prysm's Potuz expressed concerns about these tests and believes that there are still many significant modifications that need to be made.