Dencun, the latest upgrade to grace the ethereum network, might have fulfilled its vision of addressing high fees as data confirms a significant drop in average transaction fees on ethereum layer 2 (L2) networks.
After a long period of anticipation, the Dencun upgrade finally went live on the ethereum mainnet on March 13, as confirmed by Tim Beiko, protocol support at the ethereum Foundation.
According to data provided by Dune, L2 protocols using blob transactions have seen a significant decline in transaction fees, with platforms like Base, Optimism, and Arbitrum experiencing some of the biggest drops shortly after Dencun went live.
<img decoding="async" width="923" height="510" src="https://crypto.news/app/uploads/2024/03/Screenshot-2024-03-14-132212.png” alt=”Average transaction fees on ethereum L2 networks drop after Dencun upgrade – 1″/>
As of March 11, Optimism had an average transaction fee of $1,587, while Base recorded a figure of $1,927, Dune data confirms. However, these values have decreased substantially: Optimism and Base recorded an average transaction cost of $0.035 at the time of the report.
This change represents a massive 97.7% drop in Optimism rates and a 98.8% decrease in the value seen with Base. Zora also saw an impressive drop, as fees collapsed 99% from $1,423 on March 11 to $0.003 at the time of writing, according to data from Dune.
Starknet saw similar drops, with the average cost of in-app trades on Argent collapsing from $6.82 a few days ago to $0.04 shortly after Dencun went live. It is worth mentioning that the Starknet Foundation also fiance introduce a fee reduction mechanism in parallel with Dencun.
For the uninitiated, the Dencun update perfectly combines the “Cancun” and “Deneb” updates. It aligns with ethereum's roadmap known as “The Surge”, with a primary focus on bolstering the scalability of the network.
The update introduces a novel concept called “proto-danksharding” (EIP-4844), which aims to adjust gas rates and improve data management for Layer 2 networks and accumulations.
Dencun's ultimate goal is to reduce transaction costs while increasing performance across the ethereum ecosystem. In particular, this goal could be achieved by a type of transaction called “sharded blob transactions”, introduced with EIP-4844.
The ethereum ecosystem has witnessed using more than 4,000 blobs so far. While other Layer 2 protocols have quickly implemented these blob transactions, Arbitrum plans to join the party with the upcoming release of its ArbOS hypervisor. Meanwhile, Blast experienced a 1-hour downtime due to Dencun-related issues.
