Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed moving away from the current epoch-and-slot system to a new Single-Slot Finality (SSF) system. In a blog post published on Sunday, June 30, Buterin outlined the challenges and plans for implementing this new approach.
He explained that the SSF system could significantly improve transaction times, reducing latencies to just a few hundred milliseconds or less. This change would mark a shift from the existing rollup-centric roadmap.
Vitalik Buterin Proposes Single-Slot Finality to Improve Ethereum Consensus
Currently, Ethereum’s Gasper consensus uses a slot-and-epoch mechanism where validators cast votes in each 12-second slot, with each validator having one vote over 32 slots. After two epochs (12.8 minutes), a PBFT-like consensus algorithm provides strong economic assurance, known as finality. However, this system has two major issues: the complexity and potential bugs between the slot-by-slot voting and epoch-by-epoch finality mechanisms, and the relatively slow 12.8-minute finality period, which can be inconvenient for users.
To address these concerns, Vitalik Buterin proposes adopting a Single-Slot Finality (SSF) mechanism similar to the Tendermint consensus. In this new approach, a block is finalized even before the next block is created. Unlike Tendermint, Buterin’s SSF mechanism retains the “inactivity leak” feature, which allows the Ethereum blockchain to continue and recover even if nearly one-third of validators go offline. Buterin refers to this new system as “Secure Speed Finality” (SSF).
Vitalik Buterin Addresses Challenges of Single-Slot Finality for Ethereum
Vitalik Buterin has outlined key challenges associated with implementing Single-Slot Finality (SSF) in Ethereum. He pointed out that a straightforward SSF implementation would require every Ethereum staker to publish two messages every 12 seconds, significantly increasing the network’s load. In his blog post, Buterin acknowledged that while SSF could greatly improve user experience by speeding up finality, it does not eliminate the need for users to wait 5-20 seconds.
Buterin suggested that to mitigate these issues, techniques similar to the recent Orbit SSF proposal could be used. These techniques aim to reduce the number of validators signing per slot and address the goal of lowering the minimum staking requirement of 32 ETH. However, Buterin noted that this approach might increase slot time to approximately 16 seconds. He emphasized that designs like Orbit SSF are relatively new, indicating that the potential of slot-and-epoch designs, where something like Orbit SSF could serve as the epoch, is still largely unexplored.
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Ethereum developers are continuing to explore the best solutions to enhance finality. Buterin also recently shared updates on Ethereum Layer-2 solutions, which have reached new all-time highs. The Ethereum Layer-2 project Blast has announced the launch of its native token and a BLAST airdrop.
Important: Please note that this article is only meant to provide information and should not be taken as legal, tax, investment, financial, or any other type of advice.
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