3-Slot-Finality Protocol for Ethereum

Fuente: arXiv
Enregistré dans:
Détails bibliographiques
Auteurs principaux: D'Amato, Francesco, Saltini, Roberto, Tran, Thanh-Hai, Zanolini, Luca
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
Sujets:
Accès en ligne:
Tags: Ajouter un tag
Pas de tags, Soyez le premier à ajouter un tag!
_version_ 1866912100162469888
author D'Amato, Francesco
Saltini, Roberto
Tran, Thanh-Hai
Zanolini, Luca
author_facet D'Amato, Francesco
Saltini, Roberto
Tran, Thanh-Hai
Zanolini, Luca
contents Gasper, the consensus protocol currently employed by Ethereum, typically requires 64 to 95 slots -- the units of time during which a new chain extending the previous one by one block is proposed and voted -- to finalize. This means that under ideal conditions -- where the network is synchronous, and all chain proposers, along with more than two-thirds of the validators, behave as dictated by the protocol -- proposers construct blocks on a non-finalized chain that extends at least 64 blocks. This exposes a significant portion of the blockchain to potential reorganizations during changes in network conditions, such as periods of asynchrony. Specifically, this finalization delay heightens the network's exposure to Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) exploits, which could undermine the network's integrity. Furthermore, the extended finalization period forces users to balance the trade-off between economic security and transaction speed. To address these issues and speed up finality, we introduce a partially synchronous finality gadget, which we combine with two dynamically available consensus protocols -- synchronous protocols that ensure safety and liveness even with fluctuating validator participation levels. This integration results in secure ebb-and-flow protocols [SP 2021], achieving finality within three slots after a proposal and realizing 3-slot finality.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_00558
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle 3-Slot-Finality Protocol for Ethereum
D'Amato, Francesco
Saltini, Roberto
Tran, Thanh-Hai
Zanolini, Luca
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Gasper, the consensus protocol currently employed by Ethereum, typically requires 64 to 95 slots -- the units of time during which a new chain extending the previous one by one block is proposed and voted -- to finalize. This means that under ideal conditions -- where the network is synchronous, and all chain proposers, along with more than two-thirds of the validators, behave as dictated by the protocol -- proposers construct blocks on a non-finalized chain that extends at least 64 blocks. This exposes a significant portion of the blockchain to potential reorganizations during changes in network conditions, such as periods of asynchrony. Specifically, this finalization delay heightens the network's exposure to Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) exploits, which could undermine the network's integrity. Furthermore, the extended finalization period forces users to balance the trade-off between economic security and transaction speed. To address these issues and speed up finality, we introduce a partially synchronous finality gadget, which we combine with two dynamically available consensus protocols -- synchronous protocols that ensure safety and liveness even with fluctuating validator participation levels. This integration results in secure ebb-and-flow protocols [SP 2021], achieving finality within three slots after a proposal and realizing 3-slot finality.
title 3-Slot-Finality Protocol for Ethereum
topic Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.00558