Everything you need to know about Ethereum Prague Update

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The Ethereum network is preparing for a major upgrade that will bring major improvements and changes to the platform. This update is called the Praha upgrade, also known as the Pectra upgrade, and is a hot topic in the Ethereum community.

Testnets are an important foundation for new features, and the Dencun upgrade will first be deployed on several testnets: Goerli on January 17, Sepolia on January 30, and Holesky on February 7, 2024. These testnets will allow developers to Fine-tune upgrades in a controlled manner. environment to ensure everything is running smoothly before the mainnet goes online.

Source: Tim Beiko on The Ethereum Magician

The core development team is currently discussing prioritizing the implementation of Verkle trees, a data structure that optimizes the storage and access of information on Ethereum. While some developers advocate keeping the Verkle tree as the sole focus, others recommend pursuing smaller feature branches alongside Verkle development.

The main argument for focusing solely on Verkle trees stems from their complexity and the time investment required to implement them efficiently. This could mean that if Verkle trees become the next priority, there won’t be new execution layer (EL) functionality for 12 to 24 months or more.

However, there is an understanding that even if the focus shifts to Verkle trees, small updates to the Ethereum Layer (EL) may still be necessary. For example, changes in gas limits for data availability are critical to Ethereum scaling solutions and require coordination between the execution layer and the consensus layer (CL).

The Prague upgrade will include various proposals to improve the Ethereum platform on different layers, including precompilation for specific cryptographic operations, a new EVM Object Format (EOF), and modifications to smart contract functionality.

The Prague upgrade is expected to be an important event shaping the future of the Ethereum ecosystem. This is a step towards ensuring that Ethereum continues to provide a secure, efficient and scalable platform for decentralized applications (DeFi).