Author: Xiyu, ChainCatcher Editor: Marco, ChainCatcher
At 21:54 on March 13th, after dozens of tests and development network tests, the Cancun upgrade (Cancun-Deneb) will be officially activated on the Ethereum mainnet at block height 269568. This is the largest upgrade since the Ethereum merge.
This upgrade will introduce the highly anticipated "Proto-Danksharding" new solution (EIP-4844 proposal), focusing on addressing Ethereum's scalability issues. By introducing the "Blob new data format," it allows large data sets to be stored in a compressed temporary format, reducing the cost of publishing data to the Ethereum mainnet, thereby reducing the transaction gas fees and data availability costs of Layer2, and promoting the progress of the Danksharding sharding plan.
As early as February, ChainCatcher has published two articles related to the Cancun upgrade: "Understanding the improvements to Ethereum's performance with the Cancun upgrade" and "Cancun upgrade is coming, positive track and 20 projects overview".
The most direct beneficiaries of the Cancun upgrade are Layer2 networks. The introduction of the Blob data format reduces the transaction cost of Layer2 networks to below $0.02, only one-thousandth of the original cost.
As beneficiaries of the Cancun upgrade, how did Ethereum, Layer2 networks, and the crypto community react and take action on the eve of the upgrade?
For the Ethereum network, the Cancun upgrade will be rapidly adopted throughout the entire Ethereum ecosystem. Due to the dedicated on-chain data channel built for the Rollup network, making the transactions on the mainnet and the Rollup data on-chain independent fee markets, it will alleviate the current congestion and high gas fees on the mainnet, thus opening a new era of efficiency and scalability for smart contract networks. The current price of ETH has surpassed $4000, achieving a 7-week consecutive increase, and is expected to reach the 2021 high of $4868 soon.
Regarding Layer2, according to L2BEAT data, the number of operational Layer2 networks has reached as high as 45, and since the beginning of 2024, the Total Value Locked (TVL) of Layer2 networks has climbed from an initial $20 billion to nearly $39 billion as of March 13th, an 11% increase in the past 7 days.
Participating in the commemorative NFT minting of the Cancun upgrade becomes a new trend
To commemorate this significant moment, multiple projects and the crypto community have launched commemorative NFTs to celebrate the Ethereum Cancun upgrade. Participating in the minting of commemorative NFTs has also become a new way for the crypto community to pay tribute to this upgrade.
First, on February 24th, Linea, a Layer2 network developer from Consensys, announced the issuance of the Cancun upgrade commemorative NFT "Evolved:Dencun NFT." This is the third Ethereum upgrade commemorative NFT issued by Consensys, with the first two being for the Ethereum merge and the Shanghai upgrade.
This set of commemorative NFTs will be divided into two versions: a public version open to all community members, and a community version only distributed to users holding one of the Ethereum merge or Shanghai upgrade NFTs. Users can mint for free on Linea and the Ethereum mainnet within 72 hours of the Cancun upgrade activation.
On March 11th, the NFT community Nouns Community, in collaboration with DAO organizations Agora, The Line, and Stateful Works, released a 1-minute NFT video short film titled "The Delivery at Dawn." The minting fee for this film is 0.004844 ETH (approximately $19.5), and it supports payment of the minting fee on Ethereum, Zora, Op Mainnet, Base, Arbitrum, and Blast networks.
The film aims to express tribute to the activation of EIP-4844 on the Ethereum mainnet and the continuous work of core contributors to Ethereum. The NFT proceeds will be donated to the Protocol Guild, a fund for core Ethereum contributors, and is also referred to by users as the "EIP-4844 NFT movie."
The film tells the story of a child running in a quiet town, where a steward arrives with precious cargo. The residents of the town work together to unload the cargo and release magical water, promoting the development of the town and expanding possibilities. Many Layer2 projects, including Arbitrum, Base, Farcaster, Optimism, Nouns, Polygon, Scroll, Starknet, Uniswap, ZkSync, and Zora, make cameo appearances in the film as town residents.
Since the minting was opened on March 11th, the NFT video short film has already had 16,385 addresses participating in the minting, contributing 89.56 ETH, worth $394,000, and will end on March 25th.
Layer2 networks are ready for the upgrade
After the implementation of the Ethereum Cancun upgrade, Layer2 networks cannot immediately benefit and need to manually integrate this new technology. The time required to complete the integration on different Layer2 platforms may vary. It is reported that completing the integration work on all different Layer2 platforms may take several months.
On March 11th, user @nero_eth posted on social media that in the past 30 days, Arbitrum, Optimism, and Scroll collectively released over 10GB of Calldata data to Ethereum Layer1, exceeding the total of other Rollup solutions. These data will undergo significant changes after the Cancun upgrade.
So, what are the Layer2 networks doing in the face of the upgrade? The four major Layer2 representatives have long been prepared for the Cancun upgrade and are waiting for its arrival.
Among them, the ZK series represented by zkSync completed the EIP-4844 compatible upgrade on March 12th, allowing users to immediately enjoy the low gas fees brought by the Blob data solution on the Ethereum mainnet after the Cancun upgrade.
On the same day, the Starknet Foundation announced that Starknet mainnet will undergo the Starknet 0.13.1 upgrade during the Ethereum Dencun upgrade, which adds support for EIP-4844. This upgrade version transitions Starknet from using the expensive calldata method to sending data to Ethereum to the more cost-effective blobs transaction data type, significantly reducing fees.
For this upgrade, Polygon stated that its Polygon zkEVM is expected to go live on the mainnet with EIP-4844 around May 1st; the Polygon PoS chain, not being a Rollup solution, will not benefit from EIP-4844. For Layer2 chains built on the Polygon CDK, chains based on the Validium model are already cheap, even lower than the cost after Rollup adopts EIP-4844. Nevertheless, later this year, support for EIP-4844 will still be provided to reduce the cost for chains using Ethereum for DA.
The OP Rollup series represented by Optimism and Arbitrum will launch the Ecotone and ArbOS20 upgrades on March 14th to implement the EIP changes of the Cancun upgrade.
Among them, Optimism will simultaneously launch EIP-4844 when starting the Ecotone upgrade, and all superchain networks within the Op ecosystem (such as Base, Zora, etc.) will directly benefit from EIP-4844 at that time.
Additionally, on the eve of the Cancun launch, the Optimism community deployed the "Superchain Savings Estimator" tool (https://welovetheblobs.xyz/) to estimate the potential reduction in gas costs for the Superchain Layer2 built on Op Stack after adopting the Blob data format.
For example, after implementing EIP-4844, the cost for a user to mint an NFT on the Optimism mainnet could decrease from $0.2 to $0.012.
On March 13th, Metis announced that they will launch an upgrade the following day, becoming the first Ethereum Layer2 to achieve decentralized sequencer functionality.
However, it is important to note that Arbitrum's token ARB will experience a massive unlock on the third day after the Cancun upgrade. Token Unlocks data shows that approximately 1.111 billion ARB tokens will be unlocked on March 16th, accounting for over 76.6% of the total circulating supply and valued at over $2.3 billion.
In addition to the Layer2 networks, the data website L2BEAT, which focuses on the Layer2 market, quietly underwent an upgrade and added a new section for data availability (DA) today.
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