- What's an epoch on QRL 2.0?
- An epoch is QRL 2.0's unit of consensus: 128 consecutive 60-second slots, about 2 hours 8 minutes. Each slot can hold one beacon block. At every epoch boundary the protocol tallies attestations, applies validator rewards and penalties, and decides finality through a Casper-FFG vote.
- What's the difference between a slot and an epoch?
- A slot is a single 60-second window in which one chosen validator may propose a beacon block. An epoch bundles 128 of those slots — about 2 hours 8 minutes. Slots are where blocks happen; epochs are where the protocol does its bookkeeping: finality, rewards and validator changes.
- What does the Finality column mean?
- It shows the epoch's Casper-FFG state. Finalized means cryptoeconomically locked in — reverting it would require slashing over one-third of all staked QRL2. Justified means a supermajority has attested and it's one epoch from finality. Current is the live epoch; Complete is sealed but not yet finalized.
- How long does an epoch take to finalize?
- Two epochs. An epoch is justified once two-thirds of staked validators attest to it, then finalizes once the next epoch is also justified. On QRL 2.0 that's a minimum finality lag of two epochs — roughly 4 hours 16 minutes — versus about 13 minutes on Ethereum.
- What do the Attestations, Sync % and Churn columns show?
- Attestations are the validator votes recorded across the epoch's blocks; more votes mean healthier consensus, since two-thirds participation is needed to justify an epoch. Sync % is the average sync-committee signers per block over 128, shown when data exists. Churn counts validator deposits and exits, which settle at epoch boundaries.
- What is a sync committee?
- A sync committee is a rotating group of 128 validators that co-signs every block header during its term of 8 epochs (about 17 hours). Those signatures let light clients verify the chain cheaply without downloading full history. Participating validators earn a small extra reward; the Sync % column tracks their turnout.
- When do validators earn rewards — every slot or every epoch?
- Once per epoch, not per slot. At each epoch boundary the protocol settles attestation, proposal and sync-committee rewards — and any penalties — for every validator. So a validator's balance steps up roughly every 2 hours 8 minutes, even though blocks are proposed every 60 seconds.
- Why do some epochs show 0 blocks or a dash?
- A dash means the beacon indexer hasn't reached that epoch yet — not that it was empty. A real 0 (rare) means every assigned proposer skipped its slot. When the indexer trails the chain tip, the page anchors on the latest epoch that has data and shows a catching-up signal.
- Why are QRL 2.0 epochs longer than Ethereum's?
- Ethereum uses 32 slots of 12 seconds (6m 24s per epoch); QRL 2.0 uses 128 slots of 60 seconds (2h 8min). The slower cadence offsets the heavier post-quantum signature scheme — ML-DSA-87 instead of BLS — while keeping each day's consensus overhead low.