According to co-founder Vitalik Buterin, Ethereum can occasionally withstand the loss of finality without posing serious risks to the network, even after a recent client vulnerability nearly disrupted the blockchain confirmation mechanism.

After a vulnerability was discovered in the Ethereum client Prysm, Buterin stated on X, "Occasional loss of finality is not a problem." He added that finality indicates the network is "very confident" that a certain block will not be rolled back.

Buterin pointed out that if finality is occasionally delayed for hours due to a significant vulnerability, "that's fine," as the blockchain will continue to operate during that time. He emphasized that what truly needs to be avoided is another issue: "We need to avoid finalizing the wrong thing."

Fabrizio Romano Genovese, a PhD in computer science from the University of Oxford, a partner at the blockchain research firm 20squares, and an Ethereum protocol expert, agreed with Buterin's perspective.

He stated that once finality is lost, Ethereum resembles Bitcoin more closely, noting that Bitcoin "has not had finality since 2009, and no one complains."

Proof-of-work blockchains (like Bitcoin) can fork into multiple chains, with the one that has the most work (usually the longest) considered valid. However, if a secondary branch grows enough to surpass the main branch, it can invalidate the main branch and the transactions it contains—this is known as a "reorg."

This is how Bitcoin operates: its finality is probabilistic rather than deterministic, because even after the main branch accumulates enough blocks, a reorganization is theoretically still possible. Genovese explained the difference with Ethereum: it designates blocks as "final" through rules. He added:

This is not just theoretical; in May 2023, a situation similar to the recent Prysm client incident occurred. Genovese stated that these events do not make the chain unsafe; rather, "it just means our guarantees about reorganization have reverted from certainty to probability for a period of time."

However, Genovese noted that the lack of finality could affect the infrastructure that relies on it, including some cross-chain or layer 2 (L2) bridges.

A representative from the Ethereum sidechain Polygon told Cointelegraph that Polygon would continue to operate normally, but transfers from Ethereum to the sidechain "may be delayed during the wait for finality."

Additionally, the spokesperson for Polygon stated that the cross-chain settlement layer AggLayer would delay transactions from Ethereum to L2 until finality is reached again. Nevertheless, they indicated that due to the loss of finality, "there is no situation where users encounter rollbacks or message failures."

Genovese attributed the responsibility for such delays to developers who require finality. "If bridge builders decide not to implement any fallback mechanisms in the event of a loss of finality, that is their choice," he concluded.

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Original article: “Vitalik Buterin says Ethereum (ETH) can handle temporary loss of finality issues”

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