Ethereum network upgrade (Dencun) is happening in roughly 8 hours from this post.

In roughly 8 hours after this post is submitted (13:55UTC, 13th of March) there will be a network upgrade happening on the Ethereum network, referred to as Dencun (Cancun + deneb)

A countdown can be viewed here.

The most notable implemention this network upgrade will ship is EIP-4844 (Proto-danksharding) which will introduce a new seperate fee market for L2's, commonly referred to as blobs. This upgrade won't ship full danksharding, but it is a great step towards achieving it.

In Ethereums current state, nodes have to permanently hold onto all L2 data which not only makes Ethereum more expensive (Because block space is very limited), but it increases node operator hardware requirements too. In fact, more than 90% of a rollups transaction cost is due to this data storage.

So with the introduction of blobs, L2's will now scale much better and transactions will cost far less than they currently do, because blob data is only stored for a few weeks. The option is still there to store the long term data should a node operator or service require it, but it is not the default setting.

Here come lower fees!

• I am a node operator! What do I need to do?

Upgrade your consensus and execution nodes before the countdown shown in the before mentioned link is finished if you want to stay on the correct chain.

• I own ETH! What do I need to do?

Nothing! This is non-contentious meaning everyone will be participating. There is no action required on your behalf. No matter where your ETH is before this upgrade, it will continue being there in the exact same place after. And no you will not be getting any "free" tokens.

EDIT: Blobs are live!!