Ethereum researchers are considering a protocol change that could reduce transaction finality from around 16 minutes to four minutes. The proposed improvement could make cross-chain transfers more efficient by allowing payment providers to recover funds sooner and reduce the amount of capital tied up during settlement.
The draft was submitted Wednesday by Ben Edgington, who coordinates research into faster Ethereum finality, alongside Francesco D’Amato, Roberto Saltini, Yann Vonlanthen, and Mikhail Kalinin. The design remains under development, and no launch date has been set.
A transaction can be included in an Ethereum block well before it becomes final. Finality is the point at which validators commit to the recorded transaction history, making a reversal impossible under the protocol’s normal security assumptions.
That distinction is particularly important for cross-chain transfers, where service providers may advance money on a destination network before the original Ethereum transaction has been finalized.
Faster Settlement Could Lower Transfer Costs
Reducing the finality window could help providers use their capital more efficiently.
Consider a service that advances $10,000 to a customer on another blockchain. The provider may release the funds immediately but must wait for the corresponding Ethereum transaction to finalize before treating the transfer as settled.
With finality taking approximately 16 minutes, a provider advancing $1 million every hour would have about $267,000 tied up in pending settlements. A four-minute window would reduce that amount to roughly $67,000.
The difference could improve liquidity and reduce the operational costs associated with moving assets between networks.
Circle already offers a faster Ethereum transfer option for USDC that charges 0.01% of the transfer amount. That equals $1 on a $10,000 transaction, excluding blockchain and application fees. Circle does not charge a transfer fee for its standard route, but its fast-transfer service limits the total value of transactions awaiting settlement. Finalized transfers release capacity for subsequent payments.
Proposed Changes Would Separate Validator Votes
Ethereum currently uses validator votes for two purposes: determining the next block and helping finalize blocks already recorded on the network.
Validators participate in successive voting rounds, with finality achieved after two complete rounds. The researchers propose splitting these responsibilities into separate votes, potentially allowing finality to advance on a shorter schedule.
The design could also provide a more flexible foundation for future cryptographic upgrades. Researchers believe separating the voting functions may simplify a transition to quantum-resistant signatures if advances in quantum computing eventually threaten current cryptographic methods.
However, the proposal still needs further work. Voting schedules, penalty mechanisms, and security implications remain unresolved.
Four Minutes Would Still Trail Solana
Ethereum’s proposed target remains considerably slower than Solana’s Alpenglow upgrade, which aims to achieve finality in approximately 150 milliseconds under normal conditions.
Edgington said many aspects of the Ethereum design remain open. The immediate objective is to assign the draft a formal proposal number so it can enter the network’s upgrade-development process.
For now, four-minute finality is only a proposed target, not an approved or scheduled upgrade. If implemented successfully, it could help cross-chain providers reduce the capital held in pending transactions and improve the efficiency of settlement services.
