Optimum mump2p Is Live On Ethereum, Reporting 3.2x Faster Blocks

Ethereum validators can now run a faster path for block data, and the company behind it has published numbers to back the claim. Optimum mump2p went into production on Ethereum mainnet, according to Optimum's October 20 post. The data all comes from Optimum's own dashboard. That makes it useful to read closely and unwise to treat as settled.

What Optimum mump2p says it does

Optimum calls mump2p a block-propagation layer. Optimum mump2p replaces part of the usual libp2p gossip that spreads blocks between validators. The post says it uses random linear network coding, so nodes send coded packets and can rebuild a block from whatever arrives first.

The headline claim is speed. Across 50,292 slots, the post says, mump2p beat the standard gossip by 335 milliseconds, which it calls 3.3 times faster. It also says mump2p speeds up 85 to 90% of blocks by a factor of 2.5 to 3.5. Those figures were taken from the dashboard a week before publication.

Optimum's chart caption for the 50,292-slot comparison. Source: Optimum blog.

The live Optimum mump2p dashboard

Optimum runs a public Hub that compares mump2p with the standard gossip. When we opened it on October 21, its performance report covered 25 hours from October 20 at 06:00 UTC, across 7,483 slots. It showed propagation spread 3.2 times tighter than gossip. The 95th-percentile arrival was earlier by 256 milliseconds, and mump2p was first on 87.9% of slots.

The performance report on Optimum's Hub for 7,483 slots. Source: Optimum Hub.

The Hub's own labels say the comparison is against a reference measured by Xatu sentry nodes. The measurement basis lists 300-plus gateways and 154 sentries. Nothing on the page comes from a party outside Optimum, so the figures show what Optimum measures and not an audit. Optimum mump2p is judged here on the company's own data.

Who is running it

The post says 16 node operators are already using mump2p, including Blockdaemon and Everstake and all ether.fi validators. It describes the stake they run as total value boosted, a measure of the ETH behind the operators. Its title says $3.4 billion for that figure, yet the first paragraph says over $3.7 billion, and the Hub lists 1.42 million ETH.

The post says Optimum mump2p is free for any validator to run. It describes two tiers. Signal is free for any Ethereum validator operator and helps a node receive blocks sooner. Accelerate is self-serve for entities running at least 200 validator keys and helps their proposed blocks spread faster. It adds help with the timing of bid cutoffs.

For one operator, the post says wrong head votes fell by 51% over a week after the switch. That is a single case study from a company with a product to sell. Validators who care about attestation accuracy can test the claim on their own nodes, since Signal costs nothing. Setup runs through Optimum's Console, which the post says offers self-serve onboarding, monitoring and admin tools in one place.

Optimum also presents the release as groundwork. It says faster block data paves the way for bigger blocks and quicker slots. Those are goals stated by the company and not changes that exist today. What exists today is software that a growing list of operators has installed, and a dashboard that lets anyone watch what it reports.