Ethereum Foundation gives Dencun upgrade an activation time on March 13

Dencun was activated on all testnets, a blog post Tuesday said

article-image

Adobe Stock and Shutterstock-Pixelsquid/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

The Dencun network upgrade has been “successfully activated on all testnets,” the Ethereum Foundation Blog announced on Tuesday. 

“Two years after its ETHDenver inception, dozens of testing calls and devnets later, protodanksharding is finally going live on mainnet,” the Ethereum Foundation said.

Dencun will be activated on the Ethereum mainnet on March 13 at epoch 269568, the blog post added. The activation will take place at 13:55 UTC, or 8:55 am ET.

According to a post on X from Galaxy’s Christine Kim, March 13 was the expected date for the activation, though the exact timestamp was unknown.

Loading Tweet..

Stakers will need to update their beacon nodes and validator clients to be compatible with the upgrade. 

As of Feb. 22, according to Kim, “all client teams, except Lodestar, have released final software versions for the Dencun upgrade.”

Read more: Ethereum’s Dencun is now live on the Holesky testnet

The upgrade was run successfully on the Holešky testnet earlier this month. It previously ran on the Goerli and Sepolia testnets.

The upgrade will introduce proto-danksharding to the Ethereum blockchain. Rollups, under EIP-4844, can add “blobs” of data on a beacon node.

“The data in these blobs is not accessible to the EVM and is automatically deleted after a fixed time period (1-3 months). This means rollups can send their data much more cheaply and pass the savings on to end users in the form of cheaper transactions,” a post on the Ethereum Org’s website said in early January. 

The name Dencun, the Ethereum Foundation post added, comes from a combination of star and Devcon city names. Specifically, Dencun is the combination of Deneb — a star — and Devcon 3 location Cancun.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 24 - 26, 2026

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Unlocked by Template.png

Research

The march toward an interoperable and onchain-by-default internet depends on reliable messaging and value transfer across heterogeneous domains. Crosschain protocols now process >$1.3T in combined annual transfer volume and secure tens of millions of user interactions, yet no single design dominates.

article-image

The goal, per Santiago Santos, is to make crypto a relatable piece of tech for people who may not even understand it

article-image

Stripe stablecoin unit aims to operate under a federal charter enabling regulated stablecoin issuance and custody services

by Blockworks /
article-image

Will TradFi make crypto better or create more problems than it solves?

article-image

Subtle decisions by risk curators saved Aave from significant turmoil

article-image

The new Rootstock Institutional unit aims to connect professional investors to Bitcoin-native yield and liquidity strategies anchored in BTC’s security layer

by Blockworks /
article-image

DOJ files record civil forfeiture against more than 127,000 BTC linked to scam activity

by Blockworks /