The main challenge of the proposal is to avoid bifurcations. Irreversible confirmations on Ethereum 1.0 cannot take more than two hours.
Ethereum 2.0 (or ETH 2.0) has not arrived yet, and the team is already thinking about new upgrades. Vitalik Buterin, co-creator of Ethereum, joined efforts with a group of developers and highlighted a new proposal to set up irreversible transactions in ETH 2.0 in 12 seconds.
The proposal came to light on January 24. Buterin, in a blog post on Ethereum.org, highlighted the details of this new implementation. The notion of a block known within Bitcoin or the current version of Ethereum changes the scenario for Ethereum 2.0, this situation is possible because of new concepts called slots.
A block gathers the information of many transactions within the Bitcoin blockchain. When the block meets its confirmation, it gets instantly embodied in the blockchain. For Ethereum 2.0, slots implemented periods of twelve seconds in which a block can or cannot meet its confirmation.
Another type of block gets completed between 64 and 94 slots. This situation happens because, during the next cycle of slots, the block header executes the hash of the last slot of the previous block. This process takes effect in networks like Bitcoin, where each block aims at the block that comes before and generates the so-called blockchain.
Due to these complex confirmations procedures, the times when a transaction can become irreversible within the Ethereum 2.0 blockchain, take around fifteen minutes. This completion time is the average time to guide all 64 slots to their completion. Vitalik Buterin currently desires to lower this confirmation to just one slot with at least twelve seconds.
Improving User Experience in Ethereum 2.0
According to Vitalik Buterin, reducing completion times to twelve seconds will create a better user experience, strengthen network security and bring minimal errors within the protocol.
Regarding the improved user experience, those users who apply Ethereum 2.0 will acquire payments with waiting times of at least twelve seconds so that the transaction turns into an irreversible operation.
The HowManyConf portal is in charge of measuring the number of confirmations of a transaction on a given blockchain and it requires to be as secure as six confirmations in Bitcoin. For Ethereum, setting a confirmation of a transaction actually takes at least two hours and a half and under the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus protocol in version 1.0 of this network.
How to Set a Reduction on Confirmation Times and other Challenges
According to Vitalik Buterin, the current solution is to generate super committees. These super committees would be a subgroup of validators inside the Ethereum 2.0 network, capable of validating transactions way faster than previous validators; each group validates the blocks inside a slot.
According to Buterin, to achieve this goal, multiple challenges must get faced. In the first place, there is the change of protocol in Casper, whose algorithm carries out the completions when the minimum 64 slots period gets fulfilled.
Another challenge is finding ways to discourage 51% of attacks on the network. The number of validators chosen within a “super committee” would come into consideration too.
According to the document itself, currently, only one proposal is under discussion, considering that Ethereum 2.0 is not yet fully operational, and it could get delayed one more year.
By: Jenson Nuñez
