Blockhead Daily Digest: Ethereum Down For 25 Minutes

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Ethereum maxis aren't having the happiest of Fridays after finding themselves on the back foot following the blockchain's unintentional 25-minute freeze. On Thursday, the Ethereum mainnet failed to confirm transactions for 25 minutes with proposed blocks not being finalized.

The cause of the blockchain's mishap is currently unknown but Ethereum contributor Superphiz reassured the community that the blockchain is "designed to be resilient" against such incidences and suggests the issue may have been caused by a lack of "client diversity."

If no client had more than 33% control, the loss of finality could have been avoided altogether, Superhpiz claims. Consensus clients Lighthouse and Prsym hold 38% dominance over Ethereum.

The beacon chain stopped finalizing about thirty minutes ago. I don't know why yet, but in general the chain is designed to be resilient against this, transactions will continue as usual and finalization will kick in when the problem is resolved. pic.twitter.com/utAS0uAWpG
— superphiz.eth 🦇🔊🛡️ (@superphiz) May 11, 2023

Let's do a history lesson: When Prysm was a supermajority client, @sproulM_ developed a tool to fingerprint blocks, @0xinvis developed data to know what client services were running, and @hanni_abu developed https://t.co/TUtXnQu5hD to get the data out. They're heroes. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/CMnMcqsY40
— superphiz.eth 🦇🔊🛡️ (@superphiz) May 12, 2023

Elsewhere:

China has launched its very own blockchain innovation centre. Having officially started work on 10 May, Beijing's National Blockchain Technology Innovation Centre will collaborate with local universities and think tanks to develop blockchain technology in China. Over 500,000 distributed ledger technology (DLT) specialists will be trained. Beijing Academy of Blockchain and Edge Computing, which created domestic blockchain ChainMaker, will lead the new centre. The institution will work towards building "ultra-large-scale" blockchain computing clusters.
The US Chamber of Commerce has come out in support of Coinbase, criticising the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) approach to regulating digital assets in an amicus brief. In July, the exchange filed a "petition for rulemaking" and has been seeking to force the SEC to respond. The Chamber of Commerce further accused the SEC of deliberately "muddying the waters" to suppress the digital assets industry. It also claimed that the lack of a response from the SEC had destabilized the regulatory environment for crypto.
Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao is looking to reduce his stake in Binance.US. Zhao has reportedly been trying to sell some of his stake since last summer. Executives at Binance.US are deliberating about how the move might improve the company's reputation in the eyes of US regulators. In March, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) sued Binance and Zhao for their "illegal" exchange with a "sham" compliance program. One month later, Zhao and Binance hired lawyers from top law firms to represent them.
Meta has reassured the market that the firm is still "really interested" in the metaverse. At a press event in New York City yesterday, the firm announced new AI Sandbox generative tools for advertisers. Speaking at the event, Meta's Head of Global Business Group Nicola Mendelsohn said Meta is retaining its interest in the metaverse. The former Facebook brand has recently been suffering mammoth losses in its metaverse-focused Reality Labs arm. Mendelsohn added that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been "very clear" Meta's metaverse interest and that the company believes generative AI will be used to build its metaverse.
After 10 years of serving the crypto industry, Silvergate Bank is winding down operations after the fall of FTX and the rise of regulatory scrutiny. The bank's closure has resulted in the delisting of its parent company from the New York Stock Exchange, with 230 staff members to be let go and several more headcount cuts slated for later in the year. Silvergate also stated that it is unable to file legally required financial reports due to ongoing regulatory and legal challenges.