Ethereum update: Vitalik Buterin backs new block transaction proposals

• There’s consensus that Ethereum should adopt multiple actors in block creation.
• However, the researchers are undecided on how to dilute single validator dominance. 

Vitalik Buterin made headlines this week after backing a proposal to have multiple-block proposers in Ethereum [ETH]. 

The Ethereum founder and other researchers agreed that it is beneficial to have multiple actors (validators) and participants contributing to block transactions. 

‘Everyone agrees that having multiple actors contribute transactions that must be included in the block is a good idea’

Centralization risk in the current Ethereum design

For context, a single validator (block proposer) is chosen to create each block in the current Ethereum system. 

As a result, the chosen validator has the absolute authority to pick which transactions to include in the block. After that, other participants (other validators) attest and approve the transactions and the final block as valid. 

However, in most cases, the selected validator would choose transactions with higher fees and better rewards, sidelining those with low fees. This raises risks of centralization and manipulation.

The new block-creation proposals aim to solve this. 

Different views on current Ethereum proposals

Unfortunately, researchers have different views on the proposals on the table. There are three proposals so far. 

One is Braid, a proposal from Ethereum researcher Max Resnick. It aims to run several parallel instances of Ethereum. This will enable concurrent block creation and validation to avoid the risk of centralization or attacks. 

Dan Robinson, a researcher at Paradigm, supported the Braid design and stated that it could become part of the ‘Ethereum roadmap.’ 

‘Max Resnick proposes a new design called Braid, based on the simple idea of running many instances of Ethereum consensus in parallel. I think this could become a defining part of the roadmap’

But another Ethereum researcher, Angsar Dietrichs, claimed that Braid was great, but there were many issues to address. 

Instead, Dietrich proposed the FOCIL (First-Observed-If-Later) design, which he co-authored. FOCIL seeks to give priority to the first block observed by the majority of nodes (validators).  

However, Robinson countered Dietrich, stating that Braid offers an extra advantage over FOCIL. He mentioned that Braid guarantees priority ordering of transactions rather than a single validator cherry-picking the transactions. 

He added other two qualities of Braid; 

‘Conditional tips (possibly making non-censorship incentive-compatible). No single assigned leader who is last mover (so at least the potential for no timing advantage)’

The final proposal was Inclusion Lists, which ensure certain transactions are included in the block. 

The proposals have been categorized as Inclusion Lists, Deterministic Ordering, and Leaderless (no last mover). Robinson viewed the first design as trivial, but the second was more challenging. 

The same sentiment was echoed by Vitalik Buterin as he

‘Open debate on whether avoiding a “last mover” is possible. It’s good to see the progress! It feels like the block construction topic is nearing a light at the end of the tunnel.’ 

The debate showed that Ethereum was ready to minimize centralization risks associated with the block creation. However, researchers were undecided about how to reduce the power of the ‘last mover’ or single validator, who has the final say in block creation.  

Meanwhile, the price of ETH hasn’t shaken off recent cautious market sentiment. The altcoin was still below $2.5k at the time of writing but was up 3% in the past 24 hours.