Ethereum aims to cut bridge times by 98% to 13 seconds with new rule

Ethereum’s FCR aims to reduce bridge times by up to 98%, bringing L1-to-L2 and exchange deposits down to 13 seconds without a hard fork.

Ethereum client teams are testing an opt-in fast confirmation mechanism that could cut the time some layer-2 networks and exchanges wait to recognize mainnet deposits to about 13 seconds.

The proposed Fast Confirmation Rule (FCR) would reduce “deposit time from Ethereum L1 to L2s or exchanges to about 13 seconds, an 80-98% reduction for most L2s and exchanges,” Ethereum researcher Julian Ma wrote on X.

Most users today rely on canonical bridges, where transfers typically wait for multiple block confirmations or full finality, a process that can take around 13 minutes. However, many exchanges and L2s do not wait for finality, instead relying on “k-deep” confirmation rules, which offer no formal guarantees. In k-deep confirmation, a transaction is considered finalized only after k blocks (with k being a specific number).

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