Vitalik published an article discussing ways to provide Ethereum users with faster transaction confirmation times

ChainCatcher message, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published an article titled "In-depth Slot-and-Epoch Architecture: A Method for Providing Faster Transaction Confirmation Times for Ethereum Users." The article states that, although transaction confirmation times on Ethereum L1 have been reduced to 5-20 seconds, comparable to credit card payment experiences, thanks to EIP-1559 and stable block times after the merge, further reducing latency still holds significant value, especially for applications that require hundreds of milliseconds or even less latency.

In the paper, Buterin introduces practical options that Ethereum is exploring to accelerate transaction confirmation speeds, with a focus on single-slot finality (SSF) in existing technologies. Currently, Ethereum's Gasper consensus mechanism employs a slot-and-epoch architecture, but this mechanism is complex and has a long finality confirmation time (12.8 minutes). SSF, on the other hand, allows blocks to be finalized before the next block is generated using a mechanism similar to Tendermint, while retaining the "inactive leakage" mechanism to ensure the stable operation and recovery capability of the chain. The main challenge of SSF is that it imposes a significant load on the chain, but new proposals like Orbit SSF are working to mitigate this issue. Additionally, the paper discusses rollup pre-confirmation and pre-confirmation-based mechanisms.

Buterin emphasizes that the slot-and-epoch architecture is clearly the right choice, but not all slot-and-epoch architectures are equal. He advocates for a more comprehensive exploration of the design space, particularly options that have a stronger separation of concerns between these two mechanisms to reduce transaction confirmation times and enhance user experience.