Beacon Blockchain Finality Issues Resolved by Ethereum Core Developers

Two finality issues with the Beacon Chain prompted Ethereum’s core developers to release upgrades for Prysm Labs and Teku clients within 24 hours. The consensus layer of the Ethereum network is powered by the Beacon Chain. Difficulties validating transactions were reported by Ethereum developers on May 11 regarding the Beacon Chain. Although it was possible to propose new blocks, the finalization was prevented by an unspecified problem. The power outage lasted around 25 minutes. Block completion was hindered for more than an hour due to a similar problem on May 12.

An Ethereum consultant shared on Twitter that the Ethereum Foundation stated that it was not possible to achieve finality after 3 and 8 epochs. It appears that the issue was due to a heavy workload on some Consensus Layers clients, which was caused by an unusual situation. Although the network failed to complete, both live and end users were able to continue operations on the network due to the variety of clients, “as not all client deployments were affected by this unusual situation.”

The variety of clients for network validators refers to the variety of software clients available. A network becomes more secure and robust with a wider range of clients. Both Teky and Prysm have released updates that include optimizations aimed at preventing beacon nodes from consuming too many resources.

On March 15th, a comparable event occurred that caused a delay in the deployment of Ethereum’s “Shapella” upgrade on the Goerli testnet variant that was supposed to take place on March 12th. The merger of Ethereum’s proof-of-work chain with the Beacon Chain on September 15, 2022, marked the beginning of the network’s transition to the more efficient and less energy-intensive proof-of-stake consensus mechanism.

Ethereum’s activity and stake reward rates have been boosted by the recent trading frenzy surrounding Memecoin. On-chain data shows that Validators earned 24,997 Ether or $46 million during the first week of May. This is a 40% increase from last week’s earnings of 18,339 ETH or $33 million.