The most anticipated improvement since the Merger, Dencun, is scheduled to launch in two days and is expected to drastically lower layer-2 transaction prices.

One of the most anticipated hard forks since the Merge, Ethereum’s next Dencun upgrade is scheduled to launch on March 13. Why is the upgrading the subject of so much anticipation?

Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade is anticipated to greatly lower layer-2 network transaction fees and improve its overall scalability, which may mark a turning point for layer-2 scaling solutions.

The Dencun hard split includes nine distinct Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs). The Cancun upgrade for Ethereum’s execution layer and the Deneb upgrade for Ethereum’s consensus layer are combined into the upgrade’s name. The second component, Deneb, tries to enhance the consensus layer or the process by which network users agree on the current state of the blockchain. The first component, Cancun, concentrates on enhancing the management and processing of transactions on the execution layer.

James Wo, the CEO and creator of Digital Finance Group, claims that the update might significantly improve the Ethereum network’s overall scalability, efficiency, and security. He started to Cointelegraph:

“The introduction of temporary data blobs with EIP-4844, commonly known as proto-dank sharding, is a crucial component of the Dencun update. This effort seeks to lower layer-2 transaction fees by improving data availability, which is a critical step in establishing Ethereum as a scalable settlement layer.

However, a March 6 analysis by Max Wadington, a research analyst at Fidelity Investments, indicates that customers transacting on the Ethereum mainnet will not be directly impacted by the fee cut guaranteed for layer-2 users. He penned:

Users who want to take advantage of this fee change shortly will have to give up some security and decentralization by using L2s rather than Ethereum for transactional purposes. This will undoubtedly encourage more users to use other bridge assets. However, as L2 platforms continue to develop, we firmly believe that, in the medium term, using Ethereum for application-specific transactions will still be the best choice (particularly for high-value transactions).

On March 5, the average gas charge on the Ethereum mainnet reached 98 gwei, a level not seen since early May 2023. According to Etherscan data, nonfungible token sales average $147 in petrol, whereas an average swap would cost customers $87.45 in petrol expenses.

For the first time since December 2021, Ether crossed the $4,000 threshold on March 8 due to the excitement surrounding the upgrade. The second-largest cryptocurrency in the world is up over 59% on the monthly charts and 14.7% on the weekly ones.

Additionally, on March 11, just 36 days before the highly anticipated April 20 Bitcoin halving event, Bitcoin hit a new all-time high of $71,415.