Ethereum: With ‘Dencun’ scheduled, what’s next for ETH?

• Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade is set for the 13th of March.
• Positive sentiments may impact Ethereum’s price, but volatility could be expected.

During a bi-weekly call this week, Ethereum[ETH] developers marked the 13th of March as the anticipated date for the much-awaited Dencun upgrade, initiating the countdown to the blockchain’s most significant changes since April 2023.

Anticipation on the rise

The Dencun upgrade is notably recognized for its “proto-danksharding” feature, designed to lower transaction costs on auxiliary layer-2 networks built on Ethereum by providing dedicated storage space for data.

This decision was communicated during the all-core developers consensus layer call 127, just a day after the successful implementation of the upgrade on the Holesky testnet, the third of three test networks, without any issues.

The precise activation of the Dencun upgrade on the main Ethereum network, referred to as a “hard fork,” is set to occur at slot 8626176, precisely at 13:55 UTC on 13th March.

However, the date requires validation by developers and confirmation through the open-source software platform GitHub. Dencun’s introduction of “proto-dank sharding will usher in a new transaction class, helping reduce transaction costs for rollups by introducing data “blobs” as a new category for storing data.

ETH to rise or not

By making transactions more affordable, this upgrade is likely to attract more users and increase overall network activity.

Positive sentiment surrounding major upgrades often leads to increased investor confidence.

As Ethereum becomes more efficient and user-friendly, it may attract new investors and encourage existing ones to hold onto their Ethereum holdings. This increased demand could potentially drive up the price of Ethereum.

Such positive developments often contribute to a bullish outlook on Ethereum, influencing investor perceptions and potentially leading to upward price movement.

However, updates like these can also influence “buy the rumour, sell the news” events where massive accumulation occurs before an anticipated event, but the price crashes as soon as said event occurs. This behavior was exhibited by traders when Ethereum switched from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake during its “Merge” update.

Realistic or not, here’s ETH’s market cap in BTC terms

At press time, ETH was trading at $2,457.59 and its price had grown by 1.48% in the last 24 hours. The number of addresses holding ETH also increased during this period.

Additionally, the network growth of ETH had also grown during this period, implying that new addresses were showing interest in Ethereum. As accumulation rises so will the volatility around ETH’s price.

Source: Santiment