Gossipsub Message Propagation Latency

Abstract

This message propagation latency study by Yiannis Psaras and Mikel Cortes from ProbeLab investigates how quickly GossipSub delivers blocks across Ethereum's peer-to-peer network using data from three days of measurements (June 14-16) from the Ethereum Foundation's Xatu monitoring nodes deployed across three continents (Europe, North America, and Australia) running all major consensus clients. The analysis reveals that 98% of beacon blocks arrive within the critical 4-second propagation window required to prevent network forks, though a small fraction of outliers arrive as late as 12 seconds. Examination of per-client performance shows distinct patterns, with Teku and Prysm nodes receiving messages fastest while Lodestar exhibits the longest arrival times and highest variance, though the authors note these differences may relate to how different implementations timestamp message arrivals in their validation logic. Geographic analysis demonstrates that European nodes enjoy a modest ~0.6-second latency advantage over North American and Oceanian nodes, highlighting a slight centralization incentive toward lower-latency network core regions, though current differences remain within acceptable safety margins. The study finds no significant correlation between block size (mostly 50-150 KB) and arrival time, and concludes that despite these minor geographic and client-based differences, message propagation latency is generally well-controlled and sufficient to maintain network stability.