Ethereum developers address finality issues in Beacon Chain

The Ethereum network has faced transaction finality challenges twice in the past week, with the Beacon chain experiencing difficulties finalizing blocks on May 11 and May 12, 2023. The first incident lasted for 25 minutes, while the second persisted for over an hour.

Timeline of Ethereum

On Friday, Ethereum's Beacon chain encountered yet another bout of transaction finality challenges, reminiscent of the glitch experienced on May 11, 2023. For over an hour, the blockchain stopped the process of finalizing blocks.

Yesterday, Ethereum (ETH), the second largest blockchain and the main smart contract platform, went through two incidents with block finality. It recovered promptly, and the network was online during the whole period of issues, developers say.

Ethereum consensus clients Prysm and Teku released new updates to fix the recent Beacon Chain finality issues. The Ethereum network suffered from finality issues two times within 24 hours, first for 25 mins and the second time for over an hour.

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In 2022, Ethereum formally adopted Proof of Stake (PoS) as a more secure and energy-efficient method to validate transactions and add new blocks to the blockchain. PoS and other consensus mechanisms are integral to the security of a network.

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Ethereum had issues processing transactions on May 11, 2023, at around 4:13 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, and transaction finality issues lasted for roughly 25 minutes. Currently, developers do not know what caused the issue and the blockchain is now running normally.

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