What can you do in six seconds? Publish an Ethereum block – at least that’s if core developer Barnabé Monnot’s proposal is implemented. The idea, incorporated into EIP-7782, could potentially make it into the upcoming Glamsterdam upgrade scheduled for 2026. If implemented, it would supercharge Ethereum’s block speed which currently averages 12 seconds – but the idea is not without its controversies.
Making Ethereum Go Faster
It’s rare for a blockchain network to adjust its block times. Other aspects of consensus are often tinkered with, most notably in Ethereum’s case when it switched from Proof-of-Work to Proof-of-Stake, but block times tend to be set in stone. Bitcoin’s has averaged 10 minutes ever since the genesis block was mined in 2009, and Ethereum’s has never shifted either.
Newer smart contract chains tend to produce blocks much more quickly, however, with Cardano’s standing at 20 seconds; Binance Smart Chain at 3 seconds; and Solana just 0.4. If Ethereum were to halve its block times, the benefits are naturally faster transactions and effectively more throughput, providing a shortcut to scaling Ethereum. It’s a major change, however, that would radically alter Ethereum’s architecture.
Barnabe’s Big Idea
In his EIP-7782 proposal laying out the case for faster blocks, Barnabé Monnot explains: “Shorter slot times make Ethereum a better confirmation engine, which is arguably one of its main value propositions for apps and rollups settling on Ethereum L1.” Beneficiaries of this change, he notes, include network users, dapps, interoperable protocols, stakers, and node operators.
One of the most obvious advantages of moving to six-second blocks, the Ethereum developer believes, is “more efficient [onchain] exchanges as prices can be updated more frequently. Users therefore enjoy lower trading fees and Ethereum mainnet will attract deeper liquidity and more users, which has many positive side effects.”
It would, in effect, allow Ethereum to gain ground on the faster smart contract chains that have launched in recent years. In the process, it would bring users back to Ethereum from the L2s and non-EVM L1s that have stolen market share from it.
One industry figure who’s in favor of the move is DWF Labs Managing Partner Andrei Grachev, who says, “Shorter block times could change the rhythm of Ethereum’s economy. Faster confirmations affect everything from user experience to settlement pricing. It is the kind of low-level change that can compound into major efficiency gains over time.”
A Delicate Balancing Act
The case for speeding up Ethereum’s block times looks to be a compelling one. But there are always trade-offs that must be factored in. The change would make increased demands on validators, some of which may struggle to keep pace, while infra costs could rise to accommodate the additional bandwidth, pricing some validators out altogether.
Staking rewards would naturally be affected by the change, which Barnabé Monnot acknowledges, writing that “stakers would receive smaller rewards more frequently, including block rewards, which lowers the variability of the rewards overall.” As he points out, though, “Lower variance removes some incentive to pool funds, [resulting in] a better setup for solo stakers and home operators.”
The proposal must also be considered in the context of the other changes the Glamsterdam hard fork is addressing, including gas optimization. Simultaneously implementing a number of complex protocol changes while halving block times is a major change that will force the entire Ethereum ecosystem to effectively double the pace. Will RPCs, oracles, validators, and other onchain infra be able to keep up or will the network temporarily grind to a halt?
There’s plenty of time and testnets on which to work through these challenges, should EIP-7782 get off the ground. Whatever the case, Ethereum’s core developers are going to be burning the midnight oil in the coming months as Glamsterdam takes shape.
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