Blockchain
Terence Chain of Prysm Ethereum Client tweeted on May 12 that they developed a newfound appreciation for blockchain liveness, especially the LMD-GHOST fork choice, “since the incident yesterday.”
I have developed a newfound appreciation for blockchain vibrancy (especially the LMD-GHOST fork choice) since yesterday’s incident. Ethereum was not finalized for 3 eras, but it continued. Users were hardly affected or noticed the finality gap.
— terence.eth (@terencechain) May 12, 2023
On May 11, the Ethereum blockchain ran into a technical issue, leading to a disruption where blocks were not completed for over an hour. This incident marked the second outage of this nature in the past 24 hours.
Terence Chain added that despite Ethereum not being completed for 3 eras, it continued to run smoothly and users barely noticed or were affected by the finality gap.
In addition, the Twitter user shared that those who relied on the completion of the chain, such as those waiting for L1 to L2 deposits to complete, were among those affected. Anyway in conclusion,
If we had chosen strong safety over liveliness, the chain would have stopped and the UX would have been much worse at the time.
Friday’s incident caused significant security concerns for users of Ethereum, the second largest blockchain in terms of market capitalization. The Ethereum Foundation stated that during periods when blocks are not completed, there is a potential risk of pending transactions being reordered or even removed from the network.
Meanwhile, Terence Chain reported on May 13 that the network had resumed finalizing blockades. However, this was the second time in a 24-hour period that Ethereum’s performance was impacted, with the same issue occurring on Thursday when finality was paused for about 25 minutes.