Ethereum Institutional signals support for Ethlabs’ motion to reduce Ethereum block times

Ethereum Institutional signaled support for Ethlabs’ motion to reduce block times and create a faster Ethereum to address increasing competition from other networks.

“Make Ethereum faster,” wrote the non-profit organization in a Friday X post, arguing that reducing block times is needed as “more institutional activity moves onchain.” 

On Thursday, Ethlabs published an article quoting 20 decentralized finance (DeFi) founders showing broad support for EIP-8198, also known as “Quick Slots,” which seeks to initially reduce Ethereum block times to 10 seconds from 12 seconds.

Other blockchain networks are also working on similar block time reduction initiatives. On Monday, the majority of Zcash token holders backed cutting the network’s target block time to 25 seconds, down from 75 seconds.

In August, Solana reduced its slot time from 400 milliseconds to 350ms. In June, the Solana Foundation shared plans to reduce slot times from 400ms to 200ms, arguing that it would improve latency and accelerate confirmations on the blockchain network. 

EIP-8198 was authored in March and was proposed for inclusion in the Hegotá upgrade at the Ethereum core developers meeting on Aug. 6. Ethlabs said it was merging the proposal’s specifications with the main codebase and investigating potential downstream dependencies to help it “meaningfully enter Hegotá’s scope.”