Ethereum Network Has Finality Issues—Here’s What It Means
Ethereum, the world’s second largest blockchain by cryptocurrency market cap, recently encountered a technical issue that caused its network to halt block completion for over an hour. The incident occurred on Friday and was the second in just 24 hours. The blockchain network loses finality for approximately one hour, meaning blocks can be modified or deleted from the blockchain without burning at least 33% of the total ETH staked.
The Ethereum Foundation, which oversees the development of the Ethereum blockchain, states that completion takes around 15 minutes to ensure that a block cannot be changed or deleted. However, this issue has raised concerns among users and developers, as the cause of this outage is still unclear.
Prominent venture capitalist and Ethereum supporter Adam Cochran expressed concern over the issue on social media, saying that he hoped it was just an implementation issue to be fixed by a single client and not a larger protocol issue. Ethereum core developer Eric Conner, on the other hand, stated that the network was not going down and the issue was caused by a bug in some of the clients which was fixed.
Regardless of origin or duration, the issue of finality remains controversial. Transactions may appear to be processed, but the fact that they are not finalized means that they have the potential to be reordered or abandoned. Ethereum builder Pseudonym Superphiz tweeted a warning, claiming that a third wave of issues might arise, but he also assured users that the chain will keep going and will eventually be completed.
Currently, the Ethereum network is up and running again at full capacity, with completed blocks. However, users and developers are still on alert, and the cause of the problem is still unclear. Such technical issues can have a significant impact on the cryptocurrency market, as they can affect investor confidence and trust in the network. It remains to be seen how the Ethereum network will address this issue and what steps will be taken to prevent similar issues from arising.
