Simplified PoS staking mechanism, Vitalik proposes three solutions to address Ethereum network congestion

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed three solutions to simplify the proof of stake, attempting to limit the number of signatures required per slot on Ethereum to 8,192.

Original Article

Too Many Validators Strain Ethereum’s Load

Vitalik pointed out that Ethereum, as opposed to most other finality-driven proof-of-stake blockchains, significantly differs in attempting to support a large number of validators. This is to achieve decentralization, enabling ordinary individuals to participate in proof of stake without having to relinquish control to a few staking pools.

However, this approach requires Ethereum to handle a significant number of signatures, placing a considerable burden on the system, necessitating many technical sacrifices.

Vitalik stated:

The sign aggregation system seems reasonable at first glance but actually adds complexity to the system, leading to a bloodbath. If Ethereum has 500 million users, with 10% staking, this means each slot would have 100 million signatures, requiring 12.5 MB of available capacity per slot within this mechanism.

Vitalik Proposes Three Solutions

Currently, Ethereum's minimum staking requirement of 32 ETH does not achieve the goal of universal participation, making it unattainable for many.

Vitalik proposes three solutions:

1. Complete Support for Decentralized Staking Pools

This would compel node operators to consolidate resources and reduce the trust users must place in operators.

• Abandon small-scale individual staking.

• Raise the minimum deposit to 4,096 ETH, limiting validators to 4,096, approximately 16.7 million ETH.

• Require node operators to maintain a certain reputation.

2. Two-Tiered Staking

Vitalik believes this would increase the difficulty of censorship and malicious attacks as it would require disrupting two levels of validation. However, this staking mechanism also poses a certain level of unfairness.

• "Heavy" staking tier: Requires staking 4,096 ETH and participating in final confirmation.

• "Light" staking tier: No minimum deposit limit, requiring >= 50% of validators to be online for validation.

Note: Finalizing is a fundamental feature of blockchains, a process taking about 15 minutes on Ethereum. Once a block is finalized, the transactions in that block and preceding blocks become permanent and immutable.

3. Rotating Participation

This would reduce the workload for validators and the total number of signatures.

• Select 4,096 active validators for each slot, dynamically adjusting based on ETH holdings.

• Allow validators with any high balance to participate in each slot, adjusting participation probability based on ETH holdings.

• Break finality requiring validators of 1/3 of the total ETH in the group.

Single Slot Finality (SSF)

A slot refers to a timeframe in the Ethereum network where transactions are collected, confirmed, and blocks are packaged for the chain. Despite Ethereum's transition to PoS, it still requires around 64 to 95 slots, approximately 15 minutes, to achieve finality.

SSF for a single slot is yet to be developed, reducing the blocks Ethereum needs to confirm from 32 to 1, significantly enhancing transaction processing performance. However, Vitalik mentioned that there are currently 28,000 signatures to process in each slot, potentially increasing to 1,790,000 with SSF implementation.

He anticipates the potential burden on Ethereum in the future, hence proposing three solutions to limit the required signatures per slot to 8,192.