Stellar core team presents CAP-88, switching block time measurement from whole-second to millisecond resolution. The change enables future optimization to sub-second block times while maintaining backward compatibility at the transaction interface level. Discussion covers implementation details and design constraints.
Stellar Developers Meeting features core team protocol discussion on CAP-88. The proposal switches block time measurement from whole-second to millisecond resolution, enabling future optimization toward sub-second block times. Current blocks are 5 seconds; millisecond resolution allows fractional-second targets like 4.5 or 3.5 seconds. The implementation maintains backward compatibility: transaction-layer interfaces remain whole-second, preserving existing smart contract and API contracts. Only the consensus protocol and validators use millisecond times. Discussion covers design rationale, distributed systems constraints (NTP sync, clock drift), and use cases like pseudorandom generation. Jay from core team was unable to present CAP-87 due to technical difficulties.
