Ethereum core devs plan to launch a new testnet

On May 18, 2023, Ethereum core developers held the 109th All-Core Developer Consensus (ACDC) conference call. The ACDC conference call was moderated by Danny Ryan, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation, where developers discussed and coordinated changes to the Ethereum Consensus Layer (CL). This week, developers discussed preparations for the next Deneb specification release. Deneb is the name of the next instant Ethereum upgrade on CL. The developers are aiming for a launch early next week, Tuesday, May 23, and plan to launch a new test network to confirm the latest changes to the Deneb specification shortly thereafter. It is reported that four changes will be included in the next version of Deneb. Additionally, the developers discussed an update to EIP-4788, which allows smart contract applications on EL to verify proofs of CL state.