- Ethereum founder, Vitalik Buterin, has published a blog post outlining possible network improvements that could see time-to-finality fall to just 12 seconds, from its current 15 minutes.
- Another enhancement could see the minimum staking threshold for solo staking drop from 32 ETH, to just 1 ETH.
- Other proposed improvements, such as quantum resistance and partially automating responses to 51% attacks would bolster the network’s security.
The founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, has penned a blog post outlining further enhancements to the network’s proof-of-stake model, that he says could substantially improve finality times, dramatically reduce the minimum staking threshold, and bolster the network’s security.
The post, titled ‘Possible futures of the Ethereum protocol, part 1: The Merge,’ proposed changes falling into four broad categories — single-slot finality and staking democratisation, single secret leader election, faster transaction confirmations, and other research areas.
Buterin’s musings come almost two years after Ethereum switched from its original proof-of-work model to its new proof-of-stake model, significantly reducing the network’s energy use.
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Improved Confirmation Times Brings Better Security
The two most important proposed improvements for Ethereum users are single-slot finality and lowering the minimum staking requirement from 32 ETH (~US$82,000) to 1 ETH (~US$2,600).
Buterin explains that currently Ethereum is set up in such a way as to make attacks on the network very expensive to the attackers — in the range of tens of billions of dollars — this is referred to as economic finality. Ethereum requires multiple epochs to achieve this economic finality, with each epoch containing 32 slots, and taking about 6.5 minutes to complete — resulting in the network’s current 15-minute confirmation time.
Buterin proposes changing Ethereum’s consensus mechanism to allow for single-slot finality, suggesting the network could implement a Tendermint-style consensus algorithm. According to Buterin implementing single-slot finality and reducing the time to economic finality would provide several significant security advantages:
First, it ensures that all Ethereum users actually benefit from the higher level of security assurances achieved through the finality mechanism. Today, most users do not, because they are not willing to wait 15 minutes; with single-slot finality, users will see their transactions finalized almost as soon as they are confirmed. Second, it simplifies the protocol and surrounding infrastructure if users and applications don’t have to worry about the possibility of the chain reverting except in the relatively rare case of an inactivity leak.
Vitalik Buterin, Founder of EthereumHowever, Buterin says there’s one significant hurdle to implementing a Tendermint-based single-slot finality solution on Ethereum: the network’s very high validator count. The Ethereum founder, however, proposes several ways around this problem:
- Brute force: Increase the number of signatures that can be processed in each slot.
- Orbit committees: A medium-sized subset of validators is randomly chosen to finalise the chain, while maintaining the network’s economic finality, similar to how Algorand works.
- Two-tiered staking: Implement two tiers of staking, one with a high deposit requirement and one with a low deposit requirement. Only the higher tier can provide economic finality.
Buterin doesn’t point to a preferred solution, noting that all have potential positives and negatives — but he does suggest that it’s likely a hybrid approach would be used, partially implementing several solutions to achieve a balanced result.
Staking Amount Could Fall Enormously, Overheads to Rise
The second big improvement Buterin discusses, reducing the staking threshold to 1 ETH, is intended to increase the number of solo stakers and enhance decentralisation. Buterin points out that the number one reason Ethereum users cite for not solo staking is the high cost of entry, explaining:
Poll after poll repeatedly show that the main factor preventing more people from solo staking is the 32 ETH minimum. Reducing the minimum to 1 ETH would solve this issue, to the point where other concerns become the dominant factor limiting solo staking.
Vitalik Buterin, Founder of EthereumButerin also notes that implementing single-slot finality and reducing staking requirements will increase network overheads:
There is a challenge: the goals of faster finality and more democratized staking both conflict with the goal of minimizing overhead. And indeed, this fact is the entire reason why we did not start with single-slot finality to begin with.
Vitalik Buterin, Founder of EthereumOther Proposed Changes Focus on Enhancing Security
Many of Buterin’s other proposed changes focus on enhancing Ethereum’s security. Perhaps the most significant of these proposals is implementing single secret leader selection.
Currently, the validator that is going to propose the next block can be known before the block is proposed, allowing a would-be attacker to disrupt consensus by launching a denial of service attack against that validator. Buterin says that implementing single secret leader selection would solve this issue and improve the network’s security.
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Other areas of proposed security enhancements include partially automating responses to 51% attacks, taking steps towards implementing quantum resistance, and increasing the network’s consensus quorum from 67% to 80%.
Buterin also says he’d like to see reductions in transaction confirmation times, reducing slot times down from the current 12 seconds to something in the range of 4 to 8 seconds.
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