By Karthik Kalyanaraman, CTO & Cofounder, Scale3labs.com
Introduction
The Deneb-Cancun upgrade is a major upgrade for the Ethereum blockchain that aims to significantly enhance its data capacity and efficiency. A key part of this upgrade is Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4844, which introduces “blobs” — a new data structure for temporarily storing large amounts of data on Ethereum at a cheaper cost than existing methods. This lays the foundation for Ethereum to better support Layer 2 (L2) scaling solutions and increased transaction throughput.
Why Fees Will Go Down
The introduction of blobs in EIP 4844 enables L2 platforms to post batches of transaction data to Ethereum at much lower costs compared to the current methods. Each byte of data stored in a blob has a maximum gas cost of just 1, compared to around 16 gas per byte using existing methods. This reduction of up to 94% in data fees allows L2 platforms to pass on substantial cost savings to users in the form of lower transaction fees, which could decrease by as much as 90%.
List of EIPs
The Deneb-Cancun upgrade includes the following Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs):
EIP 1153: Transient Storage Opcodes
EIP 4788: Beacon block root in the EVM
EIP 4844: Shard Blob Transactions (introduces blobs)
EIP 5656: MCOPY instruction
EIP 6780: SELFDESTRUCT restrictions
EIP 7044: Perpetually Valid Signed Voluntary Exits
EIP 7045: Increase Max Attestation Inclusion Slot
EIP 7516: BLOBBASEFEE opcode
Node Operators
Node operators will need to upgrade their Ethereum clients to the latest versions that support the Deneb-Cancun upgrade on the Goerli testnet. The upgrade requires changes to both the execution layer (EL) and consensus layer (CL) clients.
For the consensus layer, validators should upgrade their beacon node and validator client to the following released versions: Lighthouse 4.6.0-rc.0, Lodestar 1.14.0-rc.1, Nimbus 24.1.1, Prysm 4.2.0-rc.1, or Teku 24.1.0.
On the execution layer side, node operators can choose from Besu 24.1.0, Erigon 2.56.0, go-ethereum 1.13.9, Nethermind 1.25.0, or Reth 0.1.0-alpha.14 (though Reth is not recommended for production use yet).
It’s crucial for node operators to be mindful of not running a majority client on either layer to mitigate risks. They should refer to the provided guides on estimating current client distribution and switching clients safely.
