Ethereum developers are providing a preview of an upcoming mainnet shadow hard fork ahead of the launch of the Dencun upgrade.
As per the Ethereum ACDE call report by Christine Kim, the ETH developers have indicated that they will execute a shadow fork on the Ethereum mainnet following Devnet #10. This action aims to conduct additional testing for the Dencun upgrade, potentially running concurrently with testing on public testnets.
Ethereum developers are making preparations for the impending launch of Devnet #10. As indicated in the article, it is anticipated that Devnet #10 will be ready, ideally within the next week.
Barnabas Busa, an Ethereum engineer, emphasized that developers are currently addressing significant challenges during the testing phase of Dencun. They may not proceed with the release of Devnet #10, which is likely to be the final development network for Dencun, until these challenges are resolved.
The forthcoming Devnet #10 is set to incorporate a substantial validator set, possibly featuring around 330,000 active validators. The criteria for its launch encompass updated trusted setup files from the EIP 4844 KZG ceremony, enhanced visibility for blob transactions, improvements in the MEV pipeline, and ensuring network stability.
Currently, Devnet #9 boasts an impressive 93% participation rate, signifying that 93% of validators are actively engaged in network consensus. The 7% of non-operational validators primarily consist of Geth (EL) and Teku (CL) validator nodes.
The highly anticipated Dencun upgrade encompasses Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4844, commonly referred to as proto-danksharding. This proposal aims to enhance scalability and reduce transaction costs on Layer 2 rollup solutions like Arbitrum and Optimism.