Novel Ethereum (ETH) blockchain on proof of stake (PoS) witnessed its first massive slashing event
Founding partner at Prismatic Labs development studio Terence Tsao, veteran Ethereum (ETH) developer revealed the possible reasons for an unusual slashing event in Proof-of-Stake (PoS) Ethereum (ETH).
20 Ethereum (ETH) validators penalized in three hours
According to a tweet shared by Mr. Tsao, yesterday, Sept. 23, 2022, a total of 20 validators were slashed during three hours only.
Verifiers were penalized due to symmetry validator issues. As validator addresses and index deposit data are not published, Mr. Tsao acknowledged that the real reasons for the issues are still shady.
However, it is highly likely that these slashing events were caused by duplicated setups and doppelganger detection failure.
As stated in the Ethereum 2.0 documentation, doppelganger protection is an important mechanism:
Running the same validator twice will inevitably result in slashing
Who are Ethereum (ETH) validators and why is it necessary to slash some of them?
Mr. Tsao also emphasized that the penalty for slashing and going offline will be increased with every next upgrade to Ethereum at POS.
Ethereum (ETH) validators are responsible for the integrity of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain consensus, correct block addition and transaction procession.
In order to prevent them from defrauding and taking action against the network, the Ethereum (ETH) design features strict penalties for the misbehavior of validators.
