Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has suggested ways to improve the blockchain’s transaction confirmation times in a recent blog post. He highlighted the complexities of Ethereum’s Gasper consensus mechanism, including a 12.8-minute confirmation time, and suggested practical options for enhancing user experience.
One of the proposed solutions is the single-slot finality (SSF) mechanism, similar to Tendermint consensus, that allows blocks to be finalized as soon as they are produced. Buterin noted that while this mechanism can improve user experience significantly, there are still issues to address, such as the overload on the chain due to stakers having to publish messages every 12 seconds.
Another solution Buterin discussed is rollup preconfirmations, which aim to improve Ethereum’s Layer 2 solutions by processing transactions with the same security as the base layer but on a larger scale. This method targets latencies of hundreds of milliseconds, offering faster transaction times while maintaining stability and reliability on the main network.
Based preconfirmations are another proposed solution that leverages Ethereum proposers’ advanced capabilities driven by Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) prospects. This concept involves a standardized protocol where users can pay extra fees for immediate assurance that their transactions will be included in the upcoming block. This mechanism would accelerate confirmations across both L1 and L2 transactions.
Overall, Buterin believes that implementing SSF, rollup, or based preconfirmations could significantly reduce transaction confirmation times on the Ethereum network. However, he also acknowledged that these solutions may reintroduce some of the complexities of the original architecture that the blockchain was trying to avoid. He suggested that network developers explore alternative options that are not as tightly interwoven as Gasper to further enhance user experience.
