20 Ethereum Validators Slashed in Three Hours: Reasons

Seasoned Ethereum (ETH) developer, founding partner in Prysmatic Labs development studio Terence Tsao, unveiled the possible reasons of an unusual slashing event in proof-of-stake (PoS) Ethereum (ETH).

20 Ethereum (ETH) validators penalized in three hours

According to a tweet shared by Mr. Tsao, yesterday, Sept. 23, 2022, a total of 20 validators were slashed during three hours only.

RIP. 20 validators slashed over the last 3 hours due to attester equivocation. Can't find much info with the validator indices and deposit addresses. My guess is duplicated setups / forgot doppelganger detection pic.twitter.com/TJupDCle8j

— terence.eth (@terencechain) September 23, 2022

Validators were penalized due to attester equivocation issues. As validator addresses and indices deposit data are not published, Mr. Tsao admitted that the real causes of the issues are still shady.

However, it is highly likely that these slashing events were caused by duplicated setups and doppelganger detection failure.

As stated in Ethereum 2.0 documentation, Doppelganger Protection is a critical mechanism as:

Running the same validator twice will inevitably result in slashing

Who are Ethereum (ETH) validators and why is it necessary to slash some of them?

Mr. Tsao also stressed that the penalty for slashing and for being offline will be increased with every next upgrade Ethereum on PoS will undergo.

Ethereum (ETH) validators are responsible for the integrity of the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain consensus, correct block addition and transaction procession.

To prevent them from cheating and acting against the network, the Ethereum (ETH) design features strict penalties for validators' misbehavior.