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Ethereum `safe` now confirms in 12 to 24 seconds

Ankr Team
Docs Team

The safe block tag on Ethereum mainnet now follows the Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR). We upgraded our Ethereum consensus clients to Lighthouse v8.3.1 and turned FCR on. safe now typically points 1 to 2 slots behind the head instead of about 13 minutes behind it. Sepolia already ran FCR. Nothing changes in your requests: pass safe as you do today.

Network upgrades​

Ethereum mainnet and Sepolia serve safe from the Fast Confirmation Rule. Every method that takes a block tag picks it up, including eth_getBlockByNumber, eth_getBalance, eth_call, eth_getLogs and eth_getTransactionCount.

curl -X POST https://rpc.ankr.com/eth/YOUR_ANKR_API_KEY \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["safe",false]}'

The Ethereum page explains when to read safe and when to keep reading finalized.

Client versions​

Worth checking on your side​

  • If your code treats safe as "about 13 minutes old", it now gets a much newer block. Logic that waits for safe to pass a block, such as deposit crediting or bridge relays, will act sooner. That is the point of the change, but check any timeouts or alerts tuned to the old delay.
  • finalized is unchanged. A fast confirmation assumes the network delivers attestations on time; finality does not. Keep using finalized where you need the strongest guarantee.
  • Nothing else changed. No method limits, error codes or rate limits moved on any network.