With the recent BRC-20 fire, Bitcoin, which is the main store of value, has a hotter ecology than Ethereum, but in terms of ecology, Ethereum is the real king, because it is quietly brewing the next major upgrade—the upgrade of Cancun (Dencun) .
According to the latest news, Ethereum developers have reached an agreement on the full range of Dencun upgrades, including 5 Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs), which aim to increase more data storage space and reduce costs, and are expected to be launched before the end of 2023. prevail.
The upgrade of Ethereum often means the emergence of new functions, the adjustment of some parameters, or the improvement of security. It is reported that the Cancun upgrade will incorporate several very important proposals. The purpose of these proposals is basically to better reconcile the blockchain trilemma to improve performance and user experience. According to the summary of the 160th Ethereum Executive Layer Core Developer Conference (ACDE), the contents that have been included in the upgrade scope of Cancun are as follows.
The protagonist of the upgrade, EIP-4844, was originally scheduled to be completed in the Shanghai upgrade, but was finally postponed to the Cancun upgrade. The EIP-4844 proposal aims to enable temporary storage and retrieval of on-chain data through Ethereum nodes to meet the data and storage needs of blockchain applications.
Additionally, the developers have agreed to incorporate the following EIPs into the upgrade. EIP-1153: Reduce fees for storing data on-chain, thereby improving block space; EIP-4788: Improve the design of bridges and stake pools; EIP-5656: Add minor code changes related to the Ethereum Virtual Machine; EIP-6780 : Remove code that may terminate the smart contract.
Simply put, if the Cancun upgrade is successfully activated, it is expected to significantly reduce transaction costs for L2 solutions. The Cancun upgrade will make the L2 cheaper and faster. Not only is it good for the L2 protocol itself, but the ecology built on top of L2 will also usher in faster development.
Every important upgrade of Ethereum is often a hot spot in the industry, and brings opportunities for rapid development of some tracks. For example, the upgrade of Shanghai brought LSD (Liquid Staking Derivatives) to the fore, which made the track obtain excess returns in the first quarter . If the Shanghai upgrade is good for the LSD narrative, then the Cancun upgrade will largely benefit the L2 narrative.
L2 is an important field of blockchain technology, and its main purpose is to solve the expansion and performance problems on public chains such as Ethereum. In the future, the development trend of the L2 track can be summarized into the following three aspects.
First, continuous innovation and improvement in technology. L2 technologies mainly include state channels, side chains, and Rollups. In the future, with the continuous innovation and improvement of technologies, these technologies will be continuously optimized and improved to improve their performance in terms of performance, security and scalability.
Secondly, the continuous expansion and deepening of application scenarios. L2 is widely used in various fields such as DeFi, games, NFT and payment. In the future, with the continuous development and improvement of L2 technology, its application scenarios will also continue to expand and deepen. For example, L2 technology can be applied to areas such as asset management, insurance, supply chain management, and digital identity to realize more blockchain application scenarios.
Finally, the gradual maturity and improvement of the ecosystem. At present, the L2 ecosystem is still in its infancy and needs to be continuously developed and improved. For example, a better developer community and user community can be established, better development tools and application interfaces can be provided, and a more stable and reliable L2 infrastructure can be built.
Summarize
In short, the Cancun upgrade is an important upgrade after the upgrade of Shanghai, which opens a new chapter in the Ethereum ecosystem, reduces the transmission cost between L1 and L2, and achieves lower gas fees and higher TPS, which directly benefits L2 and other related ecology.
Conversely, L2 technology is of great significance in solving the performance and expansion problems of public chains, and will unravel the "curse" of performance bottlenecks for blockchain technologies such as Ethereum. Therefore, the Cancun upgrade is worth looking forward to.