Article by Haotian
Source: Haotian
How to understand Vitalik Buterin’s thoughts on Ethereum transaction confirmation methods? Because the mainnet’s transaction confirmation time of 5-20 seconds is already approaching the speed of credit card consumption, it seems to be sufficient from a user’s perspective. However, compared to the millisecond-level confirmation time of layer2, there will be a certain security risk in the transaction confirmation difference between the mainnet and layer2. Therefore, optimizing the mainnet’s transaction confirmation time is more in line with the strategic consideration of accommodating layer2 development.
1) The current Ethereum Gasper consensus mechanism adopts the core concepts of Slot and Epoch. Each Slot lasts for 12 seconds and a portion of Validators will be selected to vote on the current transaction status of the chain. Every 32 Slots, which is 6.4 minutes, will form an Epoch, and most Validators within an Epoch will complete the voting. The finality of a transaction usually requires two Epochs, which is 12.8 minutes, meaning that a transaction will only become irreversible after 12.8 minutes after initiation.
2) Vitalik believes that the time is too long and expresses dissatisfaction with the current Gasper consensus mechanism. He proposes the Single-slot finality improvement method, which ensures that each block achieves finality confirmation before the next block is generated, thereby speeding up the finality confirmation time. However, finality confirmation and transaction confirmation are two different things, which are not closely related to the user perception of 5-20 seconds transaction confirmation. But when it comes to layer2 networks, this becomes a bigger issue.
3) Because the time for layer2 users to submit and confirm transactions will be shorter, not only surpassing the user perception time of 5-20 seconds but possibly reaching the millisecond level. This is due to the overall adoption of pre-transaction confirmation mechanisms in layer2. However, if the transaction finality confirmation time of the layer1 mainnet is too long, there will theoretically be a time difference risk on layer2. For example, users may quickly confirm and take subsequent actions on L1, but may suffer financial losses due to the delayed state confirmation on L1. Moreover, since layer2 itself carries certain centralization risks, longer time differences may pose potential unknown risks of centralization disruption.
4) Therefore, in my opinion, Vitalik’s new article on optimizing Ethereum mainnet transaction confirmation time is, to some extent, to cater to the overall strategic advancement of layer2 and layer1 systems. Although some people in the market are downplaying layer2, it has become an essential direction for Ethereum’s development process.
Clearly, Ethereum’s future will undoubtedly follow a “layered” strategy, with layer1 focusing on security and decentralization, and layer2 providing a stable and reliable interactive settlement environment. Vitalik’s proposal to accelerate transaction confirmation is essentially to reduce the friction between layer1 and layer2, providing users with a better front-end interactive environment and a more secure back-end settlement foundation.