Ethereum Core Developers Release Update To Address Beacon Chain Finality Issues

JAKARTA - Ethereum core developers rolled out updates for Prysm Labs and Teku clients in response to two Beacon Chain finalization issues within 24 hours. Beacon Chain serves as a consensus layer for the Ethereum network.

On May 11, Ethereum developers reported that Beacon Chain was having problems confirming transactions. Although new blocks can be submitted, unknown issues prevent their finalization. The disturbance lasted about 25 minutes. A similar issue occurred on May 12, preventing block finalization for over an hour.

"Finalization could not be achieved for three and eight epochs," the Ethereum Foundation said in a statement shared by the Ethereum consultants on Twitter. This issue "appears to be caused by a high load on some Consensus Layer clients, which in turn is caused by an extraordinary scenario."

Even if the network cannot finalize, users can still make transactions on the network thanks to the diversity of clients, "as not all client implementations are affected by this extraordinary scenario."

Teku and Prysm have released an upgrade that implements optimizations to prevent Beacon nodes from consuming excess resources.

A similar issue occurred on March 15, delaying Goerli's testnet version of Ethereum's "Shapella" upgrade, which was successfully implemented on April 12. Ethereum's previous proof-of-work chain merged with Beacon Chain on September 15, 2022, enabling the network's transition to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, which is faster and consumes less energy.

The recent trading hype surrounding memecoin has increased Ethereum activity and staking reward rates. According to on-chain data, validators generated USD 46 million (IDR 681.1 billion) in the first week of May, or 24,997 Ether ETH, up 40% compared to the previous week's earnings of USD 33 million (IDR 488.6 billion), in which 18,339 ETH distributed in return.