Ethereum Recovers After Prysm Attestation Bug Triggers Sharp Validator Participation Drop, Puts Finality at Risk

Following the Fusaka upgrade, a bug in the Prysm v7.0.0 client disrupted Attestations processing and depressed validator participation across the beacon chain. The Prysm team issued a workaround, advising operators to start the client with the flag –disable-last-epoch-targets to restore normal operation. Officials framed the fault as an outdated-state handling issue rather than a systemic failure, offering mitigations for affected nodes.

Beaconcha.in data for Epoch 411,448 show sync participation at 75% and voting participation at 74.7%, a roughly 25-point drop from prior norms and just below the two-thirds threshold required for network finality. The pattern points to Attestation failures concentrated among Prysm validators, aligning with Prysm’s previously dominant share.

At Epoch 411,712, early signs indicate recovery, with voting near 99% and sync around 97%. MigaLabs data place Lighthouse at 52.55% of consensus nodes and Prysm at 18%, while Ethereum educator Anthony Sassano warns that a Lighthouse bug could jeopardize finality if unmitigated.