How Does a PoS System Recover from a Situation Where Finality Is Not Achieved?
If the network fails to achieve the two-thirds supermajority required for finality, the chain enters a "non-finalizing" state. Ethereum uses an "inactivity leak" mechanism to recover.
This mechanism gradually reduces the stake of validators who are offline or not attesting. This process eventually causes the non-participating validators to fall below the two-thirds threshold, allowing the remaining, honest, and active validators to regain the supermajority and resume finalization.
Glossar
Supermajority
Decision ⎊ The requirement for a supermajority dictates the minimum necessary level of agreement among stakeholders or validators to enact a critical protocol change or confirm a block.
PoS System
Architecture ⎊ This consensus mechanism relies on a set of validators who lock up a quantity of the native cryptocurrency as collateral to gain the right to propose and attest to new blocks on the chain.
Validators
Attestation ⎊ Validators, within cryptocurrency networks, represent nodes actively participating in a consensus mechanism, verifying and attesting to the validity of new blocks or transactions.
Delayed Settlement
Process ⎊ Delayed settlement refers to the time lag between the execution of a trade and the final transfer of assets and funds between counterparties.
Inflation Rate
Metric ⎊ The Inflation Rate, in the context of cryptocurrency, is a key economic metric representing the rate at which the total supply of a token increases over a specified period, typically through block rewards or staking payouts.
Inactivity Leak
Exposure ⎊ This term describes the latent security risk that arises when private keys associated with an address remain static and unused over extended periods, particularly in cold storage.