diff --git a/beacon-chain/execution/service.go b/beacon-chain/execution/service.go
index b86bf15927..376a572a92 100644
--- a/beacon-chain/execution/service.go
+++ b/beacon-chain/execution/service.go
@@ -557,8 +557,8 @@ func (s *Service) initPOWService() {
 				}
 			}
 			// Handle edge case with embedded genesis state by fetching genesis header to determine
-			// its height.
-			if s.chainStartData.Chainstarted && s.chainStartData.GenesisBlock == 0 {
+			// its height only if the deposit requests have not started yet (Pre Pectra EIP-6110 behavior).
+			if s.chainStartData.Chainstarted && s.chainStartData.GenesisBlock == 0 && !s.depositRequestsStarted {
 				genHash := common.BytesToHash(s.chainStartData.Eth1Data.BlockHash)
 				genBlock := s.chainStartData.GenesisBlock
 				// In the event our provided chainstart data references a non-existent block hash,
diff --git a/changelog/fix-genesis-block-eip6110.md b/changelog/fix-genesis-block-eip6110.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..46277c2a04
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/fix-genesis-block-eip6110.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+### Fixed
+
+- Skip genesis block retrieval when EIP-6110 deposit requests have started to prevent "pruned history unavailable" errors with execution clients that have pruned pre-merge data
\ No newline at end of file