Vitalik Buterin Continues to Advocate for Shortening Block Confirmation Time at EthCC Conference

At the EthCC conference held in Belgium, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin reiterated the importance of reducing block confirmation times on this blockchain.

During a panel discussion on Pre-Confirmations (or "Soft Confirmations"), Vitalik Buterin highlighted the benefits of faster Slot verification (an equivalent concept to Blocks) on Ethereum.

Specifically, Buterin argued that the Soft Confirmation model on Layer-2 represents a significant leap forward for the Ethereum ecosystem in general, taking approximately 1 second compared to pure Ethereum verification (pre-EIP-1559 upgrade) that could take as long as 10-13 minutes.

Despite speed improvements, the Soft Confirmation model on Layer-2 still reveals limitations. Therefore, Vitalik Buterin stressed the need for alternative approaches so that users do not have to compromise on other aspects, particularly decentralization.

Additionally, Vitalik proposed a Medium-strength Assurance approach over Finality. While Finality edges out slightly in security, the first approach emphasizes compromise and "temporary trade-offs" to facilitate faster transaction confirmations with an acceptable level of security.

Approaches to help users achieve shorter Confirmation times include:

• An independent Soft Confirmation system on Layer-2
• Soft Confirmation mechanism via Proposers on Layer-1
• Shortening Slot verification times under Layer-1

With these initial approaches, Vitalik Buterin highlighted their respective limitations. For Layer-2, the workload would be substantial and require significant time to fully deploy an optimized Pre-Confirmations model. Meanwhile, assigning Confirmation roles to Proposers increases dependency on this component, potentially impacting network decentralization and censor resistance.

Due to these barriers, Vitalik argued that Layer-1 should have shorter Slot verification times to shoulder some of the speed burdens that Layer-2 must handle. Furthermore, shorter Slot verification times on Layer-1 could potentially phase out less decentralized Layer-2 models, redistributing the pressure of transaction confirmation times back to Layer-1.

This is not the first time Vitalik has advocated for implementing a "Single-slot Finality" model to shorten Verification times on Ethereum. Just last week, the co-founder introduced the "slot-and-epoch" model, proposing an equitable distribution of speed pressures across network Layers.

It's evident that criticisms of many Layer-2 solutions regarding security risks have prompted Ethereum developers to rapidly deploy new solutions to ensure safe verification capabilities at higher speeds while maintaining decentralization.