After the Shanghai upgrade, the final work of the PoS consensus transformation was completed, and the 2.0 upgrade path of Ethereum also started from The The Merge stage has come to The Surge stage. At present, the Ethereum network urgently needs to solve the problem of capacity expansion - now in order to maintain consensus, each node needs to store and verify all transactions that occur on the network. The resulting current situation is low performance, high costs, and serious network congestion.

The story also talks about the upcoming Cancun upgrade.

Cancun Upgrade Overview

After The Merge, the Ethereum network is divided into the Consensus Layer (responsible for POS consensus) and the Execution Layer Layer, execute contract code). Next, Ethereum will usher in the Cancun-Deneb upgrade (also known as Dencun upgrade). Among them, Deneb is used to represent updates to the consensus layer, while Cancun refers to updates to the execution layer. We generally refer to this upgrade as the Cancun upgrade.

This upgrade will improve the scalability, security and data availability of the Ethereum network by increasing data storage and reducing transaction costs, preparing for a complete sharded network in the future.

According to Ethereum official information, the Cancun upgrade will include five EIPs, with EIP-4844 as the core content.

We will learn more about EIP-4844 in the next section. The other four EIPs and related upgrades currently in the upgrade list are:

• EIP -1153: Reduce the cost of on-chain data storage to enhance block space;
• EIP-4788: Improve the design of cross-chain bridges and stake pools;
• EIP-5656: Some Minor code changes related to the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM);
• EIP-6780: Eliminate code that could terminate smart contracts.

The Cancun upgrade is expected to take place in the second half of 2023, with no specific date set yet. According to Ethereum Foundation researcher Alex Stokes in May this year, October 2023 is the expected activation date of the Cancun upgrade.

EIP-4844 (Proto-Danksharding)

EIP-4844, also known as Proto-Danksharding, can also be regarded as the advanced version of Danksharding expansion solution , is a temporary solution until the Ethereum 2.0 update is completed. It is designed to achieve temporary storage and access of off-chain data through Ethereum nodes to meet the data needs of blockchain applications.

Danksharding

Sharding is a Layer 1 expansion solution. It divides the blockchain network into multiple small areas, called "shards." Each shard contains only the state and transaction history of a specific type of address, and these transaction records are separated from other shards. When sharding is activated, each node in the blockchain network only stores and processes transactions within its own shard, rather than processing and recording transactions across the entire network. However, based on the "Blockchain Impossible Triangle" theory, as the scalability brought by sharding increases, the decentralization and security of the network will also decrease relatively.

Danksharding is a new sharding design proposed by Ethereum researcher Dankrad Feist at the end of 2021. This design will also replace the core team’s original idea of introducing 64 sharding chains.

Danksharding did not focus on improving the shortcomings of the first-generation sharding solution (such as expanding the transaction capacity of the main chain), but focused on improving the data availability (Data Availability) of Rollups. It proposes a new idea: give up putting all data on different shard chains, and instead put all data together to generate a very large block (the data in the block will be dispersed into 256 groups ). In this way, Ethereum Layer 1 becomes a unified settlement & data availability layer that focuses on solving data problems, while different Layer 2 teams can focus on solving their own Rollups development problems, thereby greatly improving the efficiency of expansion.

Simply put, Danksharding will help achieve "centralized block generation, The beautiful vision of "decentralized verification and censorship resistance", and for this reason, it is regarded as the most likely solution to break through the impossible triangle of blockchain. However, due to the difficulty of technical implementation, a short-term, compromise plan will be adopted in the Cancun upgrade, and the "pre-emptive version of Danksharding", also known as Proto-Danksharding, will be launched first.

Proto-Danksharding

It was proposed by Protolambda and his team at OP Labs, which is where the name comes from. As a precursor to Danksharding, Proto-Danksharding will implement many of the changes mentioned in Danksharding, but itdoes not actually implement sharding, and all validators and users must still directly verify the availability of complete data.

Among the many updates that Proto-Sharding will implement,the most important is the introduction of the "BLOB" concept, as well as the new transaction types (Blob carrying transactions) and new charging mechanisms (multi-dimensional charging) it brings to the network market).

BLOB and "Blob-carrying Transaction"

As you can see from the name, Blob-carrying Transaction carries "Blob" transaction. In fact, it is very similar to a regular transaction, except that it carries an extra data block, a Blob.

What is a "Blob"? Its full name is Binary Large Object, which is a data form that represents the data returned from Layer 2 and is used to separate it from the Calldata on Layer 1. To put it simply, Blob is an external temporary storage. It does not actually store Layer 2 transaction data in Layer 1, which greatly reduces storage costs - the advantage is that for Layer 2, future storage The cost will be lower and the speed will be higher, which is good for Layer 2 and can implement the preliminary Ethereum expansion plan.

Currently, the data uploaded by Layer 2 to Layer 1 is in the form of Calldata. This data form has high storage/transaction costs and takes up Layer 1 storage space. In contrast, Blob data has two distinct characteristics:

• Invisible to EVM: Blob cannot be read by the contract. The Ethereum protocol itself does not interpret this data, and validating a blob simply checks whether the blob is available—that is, whether it can be downloaded from the network. Blob data is stored in consensus layer nodes. Compared with Calldata that needs to be read by the contract, it consumes relatively fewer resources and has a lower cost.
• Has a validity period: The consensus layer node that stores Blob data will "prun" the data regularly. In other words, the Blob is only available for a period of time. This makes Blob data cheaper and takes up less space than Calldata data that needs to be permanently stored in Layer 1. (According to current data, the storage time of Blobs in the consensus layer will be between two weeks and one month, that is, the Blob data will be cleared within a month, and may then be stored in a specific decentralized storage network for User access.)

The official uses a very vivid metaphor To describe the relationship between Blob and Ethereum Layer 1, that is, "Sidecar (sidecar motorcycle)". For a sidecar motorcycle, although the two parts are integrated and start or stop with the engine, both sides also have their own independent auxiliary parts. This means that although the operation of Blob depends on the main chain, it is also parallel to the main chain to a certain extent and has considerable independence.

Multi-dimensional charging market

As mentioned above, Blob data will be stored in the consensus layer nodes , and has a life cycle. Blob data and Calldata data have different energy consumption and costs, which naturally should bring about a new fee market with a different gas fee mechanism from the Layer 1 network. This is also the Multi-Dimensional Fee Market advocated by Vitalik.

The purpose of the multi-dimensional charging market is to establish a more flexible and dynamically adjusted charging system that can adjust charges according to different types of data and transaction needs to ensure that the pricing system is more efficient and more efficient. fair.

At present, the specific details of this multi-dimensional fee mechanism have not been fully disclosed.

EIP-4844 and the benefits brought by the Cancun upgrade

As far as the upgrade content itself is concerned, the introduction of the Blob concept It has laid a solid foundation for Danksharding on the Ethereum network in the future, and also pushed the Ethereum network further towards the "Multi-Dimensional Fee Market" advocated by Vitalik Buterin. Users can effectively pay in Layer 2 and even Layer 1 in the future. Experience a significant reduction in transaction fees.

Looking to the future, we will see a significant reduction in transaction fees on the Ethereum network and enhancements in network performance, which will provide an important foundation for the development of the Layer 2 ecosystem in the ETH network, including the explosion of the application layer.

From a more realistic perspective, the Cancun upgrade will benefit Ethereum Layer 2 and LSDFi, which is still on the popular narrative list; and the news that the upgrade will be launched in October may It will bring users some good opportunities to DCA their ETH bags at the moment.