The Ethereum team is testing fast confirmation rules, aiming to reduce the cross-chain bridge waiting time to about 13 seconds

According to Cointelegraph, the Ethereum client team is testing a mechanism called Fast Confirmation Rules (FCR), aimed at compressing the deposit confirmation time from L1 to L2 networks and exchanges to about 13 seconds, reducing it by up to 98% compared to existing solutions. This mechanism was proposed by Ethereum researcher Julian Ma.

FCR determines whether a block can be considered confirmed by evaluating the validators' attestations, rather than relying on the traditional block depth counting method. Its operation is based on two premises: that network message propagation is fast enough, and that no single entity holds more than 25% of the staked ETH. Currently, most users rely on canonical bridges to complete asset transfers, which typically require waiting about 13 minutes; some exchanges and L2s have adopted "k-depth" confirmation rules to shorten the wait, but this method lacks formal security guarantees.

FCR can be deployed without a hard fork, and nodes can independently enable it without the need for coordination across the entire network. Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed support for this, believing that the mechanism can provide "hard guarantees" for transactions within a single time slot (about 12 seconds) under specific network conditions. However, there are still voices of skepticism in the community, with some users concerned about whether its trust assumptions can hold up under network pressure. Currently, client and API integration work is still ongoing.