Polygon Developer: Dencun Upgrade Will Hit the Zkevm Testnet in April

Polygon Labs Developer Relations Engineer, Jarrod Watts, said in a March 12 X post that he believes Ethereum’s highly anticipated Dencun upgrade will offer big benefits to the Polygon zkEVM and the broader zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) ecosystem.

Ethereum Prepares For Dencun Upgrade

The upcoming Dencun upgrade will vastly enhance layer-2 solutions that utilize rollup technology, such as Optimism and Arbitrum.

Of particular importance is the implementation of EIP-4844, which introduces “blobs” – essentially efficient data storage channels – to further reduce layer-2 transaction costs.

EIP-4844 is coming to Ethereum tomorrow.

What does this mean for Polygon chains?

Here’s what’s going to happen for Polygon enjoyoors:

1/ It’s coming to zkEVM in May

While 4844 goes live on Ethereum tomorrow, it will be coming to Polygon zkEVM testnet in April, and is…

— Jarrod Watts (@jarrodWattsDev) March 13, 2024

While Polygon is compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), it functions as a sidechain rather than a true layer-2 rollup solution. As a result, Dencun’s impact on Polygon may be less pronounced.

Polygon zkEVM, however, does leverage both zero-knowledge proofs (for improved privacy) and rollups. This means it can potentially benefit from the Dencun upgrade.

Watts, an engineer working on the project, notes that roughly 80% of zkEVM fees come from call data. By switching to the more efficient “blob” storage post-Dencun, Polygon zkEVM looks to drastically reduce these fees.

Dencun Coming To Polygon zkEVM In April

Ethereum’s Dencun upgrade will bring benefits to various layer-2 platforms. These platforms will be able to offer lower transaction fees and higher throughput to their users.

Polygon zkEVM plans to integrate EIP-4844 proposals, with testing beginning on the testnet in April. The Feijoa upgrade will bring these changes to the mainnet approximately a month later.

In parallel to these scalability efforts, Polygon is also working on Polygon 2.0. A core part of this upgrade will be converting their current native token, MATIC, to POL.

This token swap intends to unify the entire Polygon ecosystem, serving as a medium of exchange and governance.