Ethereum Aims for a Fourfold Cut in Finality Time

Ethereum researchers want to reduce the finality time of transactions from 16 to 4 minutes. Behind this technical improvement is a concrete economic issue: to allow transfer services to mobilize less capital while waiting for the definitive confirmation of operations. For now, the project remains under study and does not plan any deployment date.

Faster finality: less locked capital

While Ethereum updates advance despite the 11% drop in its price, settlement speed remains an important challenge. A transaction can appear in a block without being definitively validated. Validators still need to confirm their commitment not to revert this decision.

This is precisely the problem targeted by the “Decoupled Consensus” EIP project. When a service transfers funds to another network, it often must wait for this finality before recovering its money.

Let’s take an example: a customer wants to send 10,000 dollars. To spare him the wait, the provider can immediately pay the amount from its own reserves. However, it must wait before recovering the corresponding funds on Ethereum.

At large scale, these delays are costly. An operator advancing one million dollars per hour thus locks nearly 267,000 dollars for 16 minutes, versus about 67,000 dollars if the delay drops to four minutes.

Circle’s model also illustrates the benefit of speed. For its stablecoin USDC, the company charges 0.01% on its fast route from Ethereum, i.e., one dollar per 10,000 dollars transferred, excluding network fees. Its standard route, however, does not incur any Circle transfer fees.

Two distinct votes to accelerate Ethereum

Today, validators use the same vote for two functions: participating in the choice of the next block and definitively confirming previous blocks. Since finality depends on two rounds of voting, this mechanism limits settlement speed.

With “Decoupled Consensus,” researchers propose to separate these functions. Validators could thus confirm blocks according to a distinct rhythm, faster and adjustable over time.

This architecture could also facilitate the adoption of quantum-resistant signatures if current cryptographic methods became vulnerable.

A project still far from deployment

For now, no date is announced. Researchers still need to specify voting rhythms, penalties, and several security aspects. Ben Edgington emphasizes that many elements remain to be defined. The submission aims first to formally register the proposal in Ethereum’s development process.

The project adds to other network initiatives. Glamsterdam crossed an important first milestone on Sepolia on October 6, before the next deployment phases.

However, competition reminds us of the scale of the challenge. Solana has activated Alpenglow on its main network, targeting finality of about 150 milliseconds. The two networks rely on different architectures, but the speed gap remains considerable.

It remains to be seen if the Ethereum network can reduce its delays without compromising its security. For operators, the challenge is clear: to recover locked capital faster and facilitate transfers between networks.