A very important document. Let’s walk through this one “goal” at a time. We’ll start with fast slots and fast finality.
Buterin also pointed out that improving how nodes on the network share information with each other — passing along new blocks without sending the same data repeatedly — can make shorter block times safe without creating new security risks.
“Fast slots are off in their own lane at the top of the roadmap,” Buterin wrote, adding that this part of the plan operates mostly on its own, separate from the other upgrades.Two hard forks are already locked in for this year. Glamsterdam and Hegotá are both confirmed and expected to arrive in the months ahead, marking the first concrete steps in the timeline.
A 16-Minute Wait For Finality Is Also On The Chopping BlockSpeed is only half the story. The other major change targets something called finality — the point at which a completed transaction is mathematically locked in and cannot be reversed. On Ethereum today, that takes around 16 minutes.
“The goal is to decouple slots and finality, to allow us to reason about both separately,” Buterin said.He described the planned changes as “a very invasive set of changes,” which is why the team plans to bundle the most significant steps with a switch to what are known as post-quantum hash-based signatures — a type of cryptography designed to hold up even against powerful quantum machines.
Featured image from Cyber Security 360, chart from TradingView
