Ethereum proposal aims to cut transaction finality time to about 4 minutes
Key Facts
A proposal to upgrade the Ethereum network aims to cut transaction finality time from about 16 minutes to about 4 minutes, CoinDesk reported on October 22. The outlet described the initial goal as achieving finality 4 times faster under a technical draft that remains incomplete. The target interval concerns the time it takes a transaction to reach finality, a state that Ethereum documentation says can be changed only at substantial economic cost in staked ether. According to the documentation, changing or removing a finalized block requires burning at least 33% of all ether staked on the network. This economic requirement puts finality at the heart of the protection that proof of stake provides for transactions. Stakeholder research published by the Ethereum Foundation described faster finality as "first and foremost a security upgrade for Ethereum."
The proposed design separates finality voting from voting that determines the head of the chain, according to the Ethereum Foundation's explanation of its work on the consensus mechanism. Under the current mechanism, reaching finality requires two full rounds of voting, a sequence the foundation cites as background to the proposed change. Under the new design, validators would cast separate votes for finality and for choosing the head of the chain, rather than combining both tasks in the same voting process. Votes for each task would propagate across the network independently, according to the published plan. Votes would also be processed independently, extending the separation to both propagation and processing. This separation is the core technical change the foundation is pursuing in its work on finality, giving transaction finalization and chain-head selection their own votes.
On the operational side, Ben Edgington's research on finality drew on 19 interviews with individuals and organizations, according to the study published by the Ethereum Foundation. The interviews examined stakeholders' needs related to waiting for transactions to reach finality on the network. The foundation's research summary indicates that finality within 10 to 20 seconds was repeatedly described as a suitable range for bridges, interoperability systems and execution of user intents. That range is shorter than the proposal's target measured in minutes and reflects the needs of those applications as expressed by research participants. For liquidity providers, the research identified an operational benefit in being able to reuse capital more quickly as waiting times fall. Describing this benefit, it said a transfer executor "would be able to recycle capital more frequently," linking faster finality to the cycle of liquidity used to execute transfers.
The Ethereum Foundation links this acceleration to lower capital costs for transfer executors and bridges that move assets between networks. In its overview of the path to fast finality, it says this "reduces the cost of capital for transfer executors and bridges, which in turn reduces costs for users." The economic impact concerns the operating liquidity these services provide upfront while awaiting finality and the cost of supplying it during that period. As an example of pricing for faster transfer services, Circle charges protocol fees on fast transfers through its Cross-Chain Transfer Protocol, according to its official documentation. Standard transfers through the protocol are exempt from these fees, which apply only to the fast route. Circle's schedule for fast transfers originating on Ethereum lists a fee of 1 basis point, or 0.01%, in the fee schedule available at the time of the research.
The transition to the proposed design remains at the specification and prototyping stage, according to the Ethereum Foundation's protocol priorities statement. The foundation said work on both tracks was underway, targeting a subsequent upgrade being prepared. It described consensus separation as the leading candidate to headline that upgrade, its designation for the design within its development priorities. The 4-minute duration remains a rough estimate of the initial target CoinDesk reported from the proposal. The proposal had no announced activation date when its report was published on October 22, while the foundation continues to develop its specifications and prototypes.