The Ethereum network recently experienced a significant decline in validator participation following the Fusaka network upgrade, primarily due to a bug in the Prysm consensus client that disrupted the network’s voting process. The issue stemmed from version v7.0.0 of Prysm, which mishandled the processing of old states, impairing node performance. Developers temporarily mitigated the problem by recommending the use of the “–disable-last-epoch-targets” flag. According to Beaconcha.in data, during epoch 411,448, sync participation dropped to 75% and voting participation to 74.7%, reflecting a 25% decrease and raising concerns about the network’s finality threshold. However, by epoch 411,712, the network had largely recovered, with voting participation near 99% and sync participation at 97%, levels similar to those before the incident.
The drop in participation was mainly observed among Prysm validators, whose share fell from approximately 22.71% to 18%, indicating that the bug disproportionately affected them. No official response has yet been issued by the Ethereum Foundation or Prysm developers. This event highlights the risks to network finality, which occurs when voting participation falls below two-thirds of the total staked ETH. Loss of finality can lead to issues such as frozen layer-2 bridges, halted rollup withdrawals, and increased block confirmation times on exchanges. A similar finality loss occurred in May 2023 due to bugs in Prysm and Teku clients. Client diversity remains a critical concern for Ethereum, as faults in a single client can jeopardize overall network finality. Currently, Lighthouse clients operate on 52.55% of nodes, while Prysm accounts for 18%, a shift from previous distributions. Ethereum expert Anthony Sassano noted that had the bug affected Lighthouse, the network’s finality would have been completely compromised. The recent recovery demonstrates the prompt action taken by developers and validators to maintain network stability, though ongoing vigilance is necessary to manage client diversity risks and prevent future disruptions.
Source: binance
