The Reth incident: Why client diversity is key in Ethereum infrastructure
On September 2 at 02:20 UTC, a critical issue caused most Reth execution clients on the Ethereum mainnet to stop working. Although many operators were affected, at Stakely we managed to mitigate the impact thanks to a balanced setup that includes Reth, Nethermind, and Geth.
This incident reinforces an idea we hold firmly: client diversity is not optional—it’s essential for a resilient staking infrastructure.
What happened with Reth?
Reth, the execution client developed by Paradigm, experienced a severe outage across the network when processing block 23272427. Most nodes went down, affecting block production and validator performance across many infrastructures.
At Stakely, we follow a multi-client architecture. This means that although Reth is part of our stack, we also operate with other clients like Nethermind and Geth. During the incident, when Reth nodes went down, Nethermind and Geth took over and kept our validators running.
Why client diversity is non-negotiable
This incident highlights the importance of diversity: in clients, locations, and providers. Why? Because relying on a single execution or consensus client creates a single point of failure.
Examples like this remind us that professionalism isn’t about reacting quickly—it’s about being prepared in advance. On top of that, we have an efficient and balanced setup based on best practices in security, monitoring, and incident response procedures.
At Stakely, we bring the best of the Web2 world into the Web3 space, professionalizing node operation to levels that are hard to match.
The result: while events like this can shake many large operators, for us, they’re barely a table tremor.
