How MIT’s Research Could Make Ethereum and Solana Faster

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A new protocol from an MIT-led research, by Muriel Médard and her company Optimum, is making waves in the blockchain space. Their system, mumP2P, propagated blocks on Ethereum’s Hoodi testnet in 150 milliseconds; 6.5× faster than Ethereum’s Gossipsub.

By leveraging techniques like Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC), the design aims to create a decentralized propagation speed advantage.

Decentralization is Efficiency

Médard has long said control doesn’t scale and that decentralization isn’t just philosophical but practical at scale. In an interview she said:

“What we’re building is the memory layer … memory helps systems move data, and that’s where most inefficiencies in blockchains happen.”

Her approach applies distribution and coding theory, areas she has researched for over two decades, to blockchain networks. The result of this MIT-led research is a new propagation protocol that moves away from redundant message forwarding to smart encoding and decoding.

Also read: Decentralization Is the Future: Why Centralized Power Is Crumbling!

mumP2P and RLNC: How It Works

The core of the development is mumP2P, a protocol built on Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC). Instead of resending full data blocks to nodes like Gossipsub does, mumP2P encodes block data into coded fragments.

Nodes exchange those fragments, and once they have enough unique pieces, they can reconstruct the full block. This reduces duplication, bandwidth waste and latency.

In tests on Ethereum’s Hoodi testnet, mumP2P propagated blocks in 150 milliseconds, 6.5× faster than Gossipsub.

Everstake’s COO Bohdan Opryshko confirmed the same results saying “mumP2P propagation time was like 150 milliseconds”

Optimum describes mumP2P as a “memory bus” for blockchains, complementing existing gossip protocols with coded propagation.

Validator and Operator Support

It’s already in production. In June 2025, Optimum announced that 7 major Ethereum validators and node operators, including Kiln, Everstake, Blockdaemon, P2P.org, Infstones, Luganodes, and Ebunker, are deploying or testing OptimumP2P on their networks.

Together, these operators represent about 15% of the total stake. Médard said partnering with validators.

“means strong confidence in OptimumP2P’s architecture and positions it as a key upgrade that the operators of the core of Ethereum’s infrastructure are embracing.”

Bottlenecks, Comparisons and Bottleneck Relief

Experts have said the current relay system (Gossipsub) is “very, very bandwidth hungry” and slows down a lot under stress, while mumP2P replaces repeated message forwarding with coded “equations” that reduce latency.

Opryshko added that the speed gains are operationally meaningful:

“If somebody can transfer data faster, if you can sign block faster; you can mitigate the risk around missing blocks. That means less missing block, more rewards for users, and more rewards for validators.”

Implications and Ecosystem Outlook

Faster block propagation reduces the window for fork divergence, improves consensus reliability and makes validator operations more robust.

While the tests have been on Ethereum, Optimum frames mumP2P as chain-agnostic, applicable to any high-throughput network.

Solana is all about low-latency throughput so adoption of similar techniques could further improve its consistency under load.

With mumP2P moving from just the MIT-led research to real node deployment, it may be the practical proof that decentralized propagation speed can close the gap between decentralization and high-performance blockchains.

Also read: The Role Of Blockchain In Web3 Ecosystem

Conclusion

Based on the latest findings, the MIT-led research by Médard implemented in OptimumP2P (mumP2P) shows decentralization can improve blockchain performance not just prevent central control. Tests show block propagation 6.5× faster than Ethereum’s Gossipsub layer.

While there might be practical challenges, the idea of applying coding techniques like RLNC to decentralized networks may change how Ethereum, Solana, and future chains handle data propagation and latency. The promise is a faster, more efficient decentralized internet of value.

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Summary

Optimum’s mumP2P protocol uses Random Linear Network Coding to give a decentralized propagation speed boost, 6.5× faster block spread in Ethereum tests. By reducing redundant traffic and streamlining data flow, it could help Ethereum, Solana, and others improve latency and efficiency.

Glossary

Gossipsub – A pub/sub gossip protocol used in libp2p; for message propagation across nodes.

Random Linear Network Coding (RLNC) – A technique where nodes exchange coded linear combinations of data; to optimize traffic efficiency.

Propagation latency – The delay between when a block is produced and when it reaches all nodes.

Decentralized memory layer – A subsystem analogous to RAM in computing, managing short-term data access across decentralized systems.

Encoding/decoding overhead – Computational cost nodes incur when applying RLNC.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does faster propagation mean instant transactions?

No. It reduces block sharing delay but end-to-end transaction time also depends on consensus, execution and state syncing.

Can momP2P replace libp2p entirely?

Not necessarily. It’s a replacement for Gossipsub (the pub/sub layer) and is API compatible but libp2p has other networking primitives that may still be needed.

Is this technology blockchain specific?

While tested on Ethereum, the design is chain agnostic and could apply to any P2P protocol, including Solana, Polkadot etc.

What are the drawbacks of RLNC in practice?

Extra computational load, complexity under high churn and uneven node performance are risks that need to be tuned.