• Ethereum experienced a 25-minute period of failed transaction finality on May 11.
• Contributor terence.eth said the issue has since been solved and the blockchain is designed to be resilient against such incidents.
• The cause of the disruption is still unknown, although it could have been avoided if no client had more than one-third dominance over the network.
Ethereum Transaction Finality Disruption
25-Minute Period of Failed Transactions
On May 11, Ethereum experienced a 25-minute period of failed transaction finality on its beacon chain. Contributor terence.eth said that the issue has since been solved, with more details to follow about what caused the disruption.
Resilience Against Such Incidents
The Ethereum blockchain is designed to be resilient against such issues and it was noted that while transactions were only partially processed during this time, the chain was able to avoid a full outage or forking because no client had a supermajority control over the network at any point in time.
Cause Still Unknown
The cause of this disruption is still unknown, however it is suggested that it may have resulted from a lack of diversity between clients as loss of finality can be avoided if no single client has too much control over the network (i.e., more than one-third). Currently two consensus clients — Lighthouse and Prsym — dominate Ethereum, each with 38% dominance respectively.
Mike Dalton’s Analysis
Mike Dalton from CryptoSlate provided an analysis on this incident noting that though relatively short-lived, this type of disruption can be concerning for users who rely on speed and security when making transactions on Ethereum’s blockchain. He further adds that though there were no major issues during this incident, understanding what caused it will help prevent similar occurrences in future iterations of Ethereum’s blockchain technology.
Conclusion
Ethereum experienced a 25-minute period where transaction finalization failed but luckily managed to avoid any major issues or full outages as a result due to its intrinsic resilience towards these types of disruptions. Though the cause remains unknown, understanding why these types incidents occur will help users become better informed when using public blockchains like Ethereum in future iterations as well as ensure greater security and speed when making transactions on these platforms going forward.
