Vitalik Buterin Proposes Method to Accelerate Ethereum Transactions

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined a method to accelerate transactions on the blockchain using technologies that could potentially reduce L1 confirmation times from several seconds to milliseconds.

In a new essay, he suggested transitioning from the current epoch and slot mechanism to a single-slot finality (SSF) system, highlighting key issues with the existing model.

According to Buterin, the hard fork The Merge, which transitioned Ethereum from a PoW to a PoS consensus mechanism, reduced transaction confirmation times on the main network to 5-20 seconds.

This performance “competes with the credit card payment experience,” yet there is potential for further speeding up operations, the developer believes.

One option for increasing throughput could be altering the architecture of slots and epochs.

Slots represent a 12-second period during which a randomly chosen validator has the right to include a block in the network. Every 32 slots form one epoch.

Buterin noted that the Ethereum Foundation is becoming “increasingly uncomfortable” with the current slot voting mechanism and approach to finality. Such a system is prone to numerous errors and is extremely inconvenient.

He pointed out that with such infrastructure, final block creation takes too long—about 12 minutes. To alleviate the issue, the programmer proposed replacing the existing model with SSF.

“The main difference from Tendermint is that we retain the ‘inactivity leak’ mechanism, which allows the blockchain to continue operating and recover if more than one-third of validators fail,” Buterin clarified.

SSF is still not fully developed and may encounter some challenges. For instance, validators need to publish two messages every 12 seconds, increasing network overload.

To address such difficulties, the Orbit SSF proposal is being developed, but it is still in its early stages.

“The more capabilities we have, the more beneficial it is for L1 and L2 users, and the more we can simplify the work of network developers for scaling,” the Ethereum co-founder concluded.

Previously, Buterin listed ways to apply cryptocurrencies in everyday life. In particular, he suggested using ZKP mechanisms for verifying “identity, credentials, or reputation.”

Back in May, the developer identified five architectural decisions in the Ethereum blockchain that he would like to change if possible.