The real answer is that the current PoWPeg (federated multisig in HSM verifying the merge mining) provides the finalitt, because the software refuses any reorgs deeper than roughly a day.
Theoretically any BitVM or GSR or other trustless bridge mechanism, will also require some delay to consider a block safe to withdraw from, so that would also be an obvious way to measure finality, exactly like Bitcoin is assumed impossible to reorg furthet than 100 blocks back.
So a mining pool of course can reorg anything, but they can only do that for grieving, they wont get any value from it, because whatever bridge you design will provide finality or otherwise be totally insecure.
I explained this repeatedly, sidechains are ephemeral, you cant design a sidechain that doesnt have checkpoints.
The question is, are the checkpoints subjective or objective?
Finality in Rootstock can be objective because everyone going through the history can achieve the same conclusion, at least theoritically with minimal changes to consensus. But also if we just all agree that anything buried under two weeks of bitcoin blocks is final. This is the beauty, bitcoin provides an objective clock.
Ethereum doesnt have this, which is why it is called weak subjective guarantees. Meaning that you cant actually make objective decision that matches what everyone agrees on, not without going online and making some human judgement on which checkpoints are actually valid. Becauase creating checkpoints costs nothing whatsoever. Someone staking eth a decade ago can create whole decade worth of alternative chain and checkpoints, and it is indistinguishable from the canonical chain.
Bitcoin is basically an oracle, it tells you what did majority of people "saw" in the past. Ethereum doesnt have that.
Nuh
npub1jv…s7yqz
2026-10-19 10:52:49 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…mt0l
Author Public Key
npub1jvxvaufrwtwj79s90n79fuxmm9pntk94rd8zwderdvqv4dcclnvs9s7yqzSeen on
wss://relay.damus.ioPublished at
2026-10-19 10:52:49 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "The real answer is that the current PoWPeg (federated multisig in HSM verifying the merge mining) provides the finalitt, because the software refuses any reorgs deeper than roughly a day.\n\nTheoretically any BitVM or GSR or other trustless bridge mechanism, will also require some delay to consider a block safe to withdraw from, so that would also be an obvious way to measure finality, exactly like Bitcoin is assumed impossible to reorg furthet than 100 blocks back. \n\nSo a mining pool of course can reorg anything, but they can only do that for grieving, they wont get any value from it, because whatever bridge you design will provide finality or otherwise be totally insecure.\n\nI explained this repeatedly, sidechains are ephemeral, you cant design a sidechain that doesnt have checkpoints.\n\nThe question is, are the checkpoints subjective or objective?\n\nFinality in Rootstock can be objective because everyone going through the history can achieve the same conclusion, at least theoritically with minimal changes to consensus. But also if we just all agree that anything buried under two weeks of bitcoin blocks is final. This is the beauty, bitcoin provides an objective clock.\n\nEthereum doesnt have this, which is why it is called weak subjective guarantees. Meaning that you cant actually make objective decision that matches what everyone agrees on, not without going online and making some human judgement on which checkpoints are actually valid. Becauase creating checkpoints costs nothing whatsoever. Someone staking eth a decade ago can create whole decade worth of alternative chain and checkpoints, and it is indistinguishable from the canonical chain.\n\nBitcoin is basically an oracle, it tells you what did majority of people \"saw\" in the past. Ethereum doesnt have that.",
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