About to migrate to Proof-of-Stake (PoS), Ethereum experienced technical problems this Wednesday (25). Beacon Chain, responsible for the introduction of PoS, had seven blocks voided and developers still don’t know the exact reason. As a result, it is possible that the migration to PoS will experience yet another delay. After all, the immutability of transactions depends on the stability of the blocks. In other words, ‘rearranging’ blocks is the only way to cancel a given transaction. Perhaps due to the lack of confidence with the future of the project, the price of Ethereum plummeted 10% this Thursday morning (26). So this is a good indicator that the world has its eyes on the second largest cryptocurrency on the market.
Seven blocks rearranged in Ethereum’s PoS
Ethereum users and developers are concerned about Proof-of-Stake (PoS) stability after Beacon Chain nullified seven blocks in a row this Wednesday (25). The big problem is that this can void already confirmed transactions, leading to an increase in waiting time, for example.
“The Ethereum Beacon Chain has undergone a 7-block deep reorganization. This shows that our current witnessing strategy should be reconsidered to result in a more stable chain!”
The Ethereum beacon chain experienced a 7-block deep reorg ~2.5h ago. This shows that the current attestation strategy of nodes should be reconsidered to hopefully result in a more stable chain! (proposals already exist) pic.twitter.com/BkQrKuUlw1
— Martin Köppelmann 🇺🇦 (@koeppelmann) May 25, 2022
Following his comments on Twitter, Martin Köppelmann of Gnosis states that Vitalik Buterin was very optimistic when he stated that Proof-of-Stake (PoS) would bring greater stability to the network. As an example, he stated that Ethereum has not seen such massive reorganizations in years. Scheduled to launch in August, Ethereum’s PoS may experience further delays. After all, it’s possible that bigger problems than this will arise in other tests since this is a big change, without as much testing as Proof-of-Work (PoW).
Developers don’t know why
What seems to make the situation worse is the lack of knowledge of the reason for this reorganization, which could have been greater. Responding to Köppelmann, the Ethereum founder pointed out that some people were already looking into the case.
“In this case, customer teams are struggling to understand the situation so they can figure out what to fix in the last few hours! Already some good chances.”
So far, it is believed that the reorganization of the blocks was not an attack but a conflict between clients. That is, some were running a different version than others, however the developers would already be working on solutions.
Ethereum price plummeted
Coincidentally or not, the price of Ethereum plummeted this Thursday morning (26). From $1,925 to $1,734, this 10% drop could be an indication of a lack of confidence in the project. As for Martin Köppelmann, who took the discussions to social media, he was upset with the attention received, especially by those who don’t care about the success of Ethereum.
“The amount of attention this tweet quickly garnered — specifically from people not interested in Ethereum’s success makes me almost regret doing it.”
Vitalik Buterin tried to console him while also trying to understand the situation.
“Please don’t be sorry. The search for the truth is more important than ‘not giving rhetorical ammunition to the wrong people’ or anything else.”
Anyway, the world is watching this migration that promises to have a big impact not only on Ethereum but also on the entire cryptocurrency market, including foreign policies that put pressure on the mining sector.
