Glossary
Dencun Upgrade
The March 2024 Ethereum upgrade that introduced EIP-4844 (blob-carrying transactions, "proto-danksharding") — dramatically dropping Layer-2 transaction costs.
Dencun ("Cancun" on execution + "Deneb" on consensus) activated on March 13, 2024. The headline feature was EIP-4844 — blob- carrying transactions, also known as proto-danksharding. Rollups gained access to dedicated cheap data space outside the normal calldata pricing.
Rollup transaction costs fell by an order of magnitude (often 10–50x) immediately. Dencun also shipped EIP-1153 (transient storage), EIP-5656 (MCOPY), EIP-6780 (neutered SELFDESTRUCT), and EIP-4788 (beacon block root in EVM). It is the single most consequential Ethereum scaling upgrade after the Merge.