Ethereum Mainet Failed to Finalize Transactions for 25 Minutes

An unidentified issue on Ethereum’s Beacon Chain led to a halt in transactions for nearly half an hour on May 11.

Around 8:15pm on Thursday May 11, a number of Ethereum core developers announced that the Beacon Chain was having issues with confirming transactions. New blocks were able to be proposed but an unknown issue was preventing them from being finalized.

After 25 minutes the mainnet began finalizing blocks once more, with Ethereum core developer and Prysmatic Labs co-founder Preston Van Loon announcing that “finality has been restored.”

The cause of the issue remains unclear, however Ethereum developers said that the problem is being investigated to prevent it from occurring again.

Following the incident, pseudonymous Ethereum consultant @Superphiz noted that

“client diversity” was one of the main reasons that the loss of finality was so short-lived. However, he also pointed out that the loss of finality could’ve been avoided altogether if no client had more than 33% control.

Client diversity refers to the number of software clients available to network validators, and greater diversity among clients means a more secure and robust network for validators.