Ethereum Devs Fix Beacon Chain Finality Problems

Ethereum Developers Address Finality Issues on Beacon Chain

Ethereum developers have taken measures to address the finality issues that occurred on the Beacon chain in the past week. On May 11 and May 12, the Beacon chain, which is the consensus layer of the Ethereum network, was unable to reach finality on two occasions. The first occurrence lasted for 25 minutes, and the second for over an hour.

Although it is still unclear what caused this incident, it’s worth noting that this network glitch had no impact on on-chain activity as transactions were still processed without any issue.

In response to these events last week, Ethereum developers have released patches to provide a solution for network users. According to a tweet by Beacom Chain community health analyst superphiz:

We can start putting this loss of finality issue behind us,@Teku_ConsenSysand @prylabs have deployed fixes that will prevent attestation flooding.This is one step on our diversity & decentralization journey.Let’s learn from it and move forward with greater purpose.pic.twitter.com/cSRgPTWeuy

— superphiz.eth 🦇🔊🛡️ (@superphiz) May 13th ,2023

Teku and Prysm are two of Ethereum’s constitutional clients who implemented these fixes which will help prevent further finality issues occurring again in future situations like these.

Superphiz also shared a statement from the Ethereum Foundation speculating that the cause of these “exceptional scenarios” could be due to the “high load of some Consensus Layer clients”. The Ethereum Foundation applauded client diversity which made it feasible for transactions to occur on the network, as not all client implementations were affected by the finality challenges.

The exact reason behind this glitch is still unknown. However, they provided assurances that upgrades implemented by Teku and Prsym would help avoid future occurrences via optimizations that will prevent beacon nodes from high resource usage during such situations.

ETH Total Supply Declines Following The Merge

In other news, Ethereum’s total supply decreased in the months after The Merge occurred. On September 15th ,2022, The Merge happened where the Ethereum network fully transitioned from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), leading to Ethereum 2.0. 

Data from ultrasound.money shows that ETH’s total supply has declined by 0.29% in just over eight months since this historical event took place:

Source: ultrasound.money

Since then, over 653k ETH has been burned compared with only 425k ETH minted resulting in a net negative change of about -227k ETH. 

Interestingly enough, ultrasound.money predicts that if The Merge had not taken place, then there would have been an increase rate of around 3.244% per year in the total ETH supply.

If this deflationary trend continues, it would mean good news for long-term ETH investors as a decrease in supply usually results in an increase of value. 

At present, ETH is tradingSponsored Product at $1,805.77 with a total supply of 122.89 million and has shown negative price movement over the last week losing around 5.36% of its value along with most other cryptocurrencies:

ETH TradingSponsored Product At $1804.73 | Source: ETHUSD Chart on Tradingview.com

This decline may be due to various reasons such as market volatility or investor sentiment towards Ethereum’s future prospects.

The Importance Of Network Security In Cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum rely heavily on network security to ensure that transactions are processed safely and securely without any interference from external parties. 

A lack of proper network security can lead to issues such as double-spending attacks where malicious actors try to spend their cryptocurrency twice by exploiting vulnerabilities within the system.  

In addition, poor network security also makes it easier for hackers to gain access to user funds stored within wallets connected to these networks which could result in significant losses if not addressed promptly.

Conclusion

Ethereum developers have taken steps towards addressing finality challenges faced by users on Beacon Chain recently through patches released after two separate incidents occurred earlier this month causing temporary disruptions but no impact on transactions. The Ethereum Foundation has applauded client diversity which made it feasible for transactions to occur on the network, as not all client implementations were affected by these challenges.

Additionally, data from ultrasound.money shows that ETH’s total supply decreased in just over eight months since The Merge occurred where the Ethereum network fully transitioned from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), leading to Ethereum 2.0. This deflationary trend could be good news for long-term ETH investors as a decrease in supply usually results in an increase of value. 

Cryptocurrencies like Ethereum rely heavily on proper network security measures to ensure safe and secure processing of transactions without any interference or attacks from external parties. It is important for developers and users alike to prioritize cybersecurity when dealing with cryptocurrencies.