Vitalik Buterin: Ethereum can handle temporary loss of finality

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin stated on the X platform that occasionally losing finality is not a major issue, as finality is designed to ensure blocks are not rolled back. If a significant client error causes an occasional delay of a few hours in finality, it is acceptable as long as the erroneous block is not finalized, and the chain will continue to operate during this time. Computer science PhD Fabrizio Romano Genovese agreed with Buterin, noting that Ethereum becomes more like Bitcoin when finality is lost. He explained that Ethereum's finality mechanism works by "justifying" a block when it receives more than 66% of the validators' votes, and then "finalizing" it after two more epochs (64 blocks). A Polygon spokesperson stated that the lack of finality would affect infrastructure that relies on it, such as certain cross-chain or Layer 2 bridges, but Polygon will continue to operate normally; only transfers from Ethereum to sidechains may be delayed, pending the restoration of finality. AggLayer will also delay transactions from Ethereum to L2 until finality is achieved again.