On May 12, Terence Chain, a Prysm Ethereum Client team member, took to Twitter to express a newfound appreciation for blockchain liveness, specifically the LMD-GHOST fork choice. This sentiment was prompted by an incident that occurred the day prior. As a professional in the field, Chain’s recognition of the importance of blockchain liveness is noteworthy.
On May 11, the Ethereum blockchain experienced a technical glitch resulting in a temporary disruption where blocks were not finalized for over an hour. This unfortunate incident marked the second outage of its kind within the last 24 hours.
According to Terence Chain, Ethereum remained operational and unscathed despite not reaching finality for three epochs. The system’s seamless performance went unnoticed by users, who were unaffected by the temporary delay.
Additionally, the Twitter user disclosed that individuals dependent on completing the Chain, including those awaiting L1 to L2 deposits to finalize, were among the impacted parties. Nevertheless, it is important to note that this information is conclusive.
If we had chosen strong safety over liveness, the chain would have halted, and the UX would have been far worse at the time.
The events of last Friday have sparked a wave of security concerns among Ethereum users, given that it is the second-largest blockchain in market capitalization. The Ethereum Foundation has issued a statement highlighting the potential risks of pending transactions being re-ordered or dropped from the network during periods when blocks are not finalized. This development underscores the need for heightened vigilance and caution when using the platform.
On May 13, Terence Chain delivered a report indicating that the Ethereum network had resumed its block finalization process. Regrettably, this was not the first time the network had experienced performance issues within a 24-hour window. On Thursday, the same problem caused a pause in finality for roughly 25 minutes.
