Why Ethereum developers may not prolong the fresh Devnet launch

Although the ACDC call #119 focused on the Dencun upgrade, the developers considered discussing the health and status of the latest developer testnet.

• The network participation rate on Ethereum increased to 90% as Devnet-9 closes in on completion.
• The Dencun testnet could launch before November ends.

Ethereum [ETH] developers had their usual All Core Developers Consensus (ACD) call on 5 October. From the meeting, they decided the timing for the Devnet-10 launch could happen earlier than initially projected.

Once the block generator clears the way

Although the ACDC call #119 focused on the Dencun upgrade, the developers considered discussing the health and status of the latest developer Testnet Devnet-9 as a priority, alongside Devnet-10.

For the unfamiliar, Devnet-9 launched on 29 September, as a way to improve the network participation rate on the blockchain. The network participation rate is defined as the percentage of validators actively carrying out their duties on the network.

During the meeting, the developers noted that the network participation rate was impressively high at 90%.

However, Barnabas Busa, a DevOps Engineer for the Ethereum Foundation, mentioned that there were a few bugs with Devnet-9, especially in the execution layer. For context, the execution layer is the part of the network responsible for validating the state in the block header. 

Meanwhile, the Ethereum Foundation seemed to be working on fixing the bug as Geth developer Marius van der Wijden said that he was working on updating the block generator for the execution layer.

Next, on the agenda was the Devnet-10, which is primarily to check the next maximum epoch churn limit in EIP-7514. EIP-7514 is designed to slow down the growth of the active validator set by tracking the soaring levels of staked ETH.

Dencun Testnet is set before November

At the time of writing, Santiment showed that the number of validator deposits was 1026. This was a notable decrease from the highs registered some weeks back. Therefore, the decline means that the objectives for Devnet-10 may already be set in motion.

As expected, Ethereum’s development activity has started to rise again. The Development Activity means the code committed by developers toward upgrades on a network. Over the past month, the metric tumbled. So, the slight rise implies that developers were starting to get back to polishing the network. 

As per Devnet-10, Parithosh Jayanthi, another DevOps Engineer at the Foundation mentioned that it could launch as early as next week. The Berlin-based developer, however, mentioned that the timeframe could be subject to the quickness of solving outstanding bugs and issues. Busa also weighed in on the matter saying,

“I would like to see all clients being able to participate and no more bugs on Devnet-9 before we proceed with the larger test. We should have a very stable, like 100% participation, before we move on.”

Regarding the Dencun final upgrade the cal chairman Tim Beiko restated that the public Testnet would happen before Ethereum’s Instabul conference in mid-November called Devconnect.