Prior to The Merge, Ethereum used to have dozens upon dozens of mining pools dedicating hashrate toward the blockchain network. This has changed, and many miners have switched to Ethash compatible coins, such as ethereum classic, ERGO and the new fork ETHW. Now Ethereum blocks are verified by validators and at the time of writing, there are 429,278 validators. However, a great deal of the 13.7 million staked ethereum is held by four known providers.
4 Known Providers Hold 59% of the Staked Ethereum Today
Bitcoin.com News reported on Lido possessing 30% of the staked ether four days ago. On September 15, the Twitter account Checkmate, the lead onchain analyst at Glassnode, wrote about the entities currently holding the lion’s share of today’s staked ETH. “We profiled a few more entities,” Checkmate wrote to someone discussing Lido’s holdings. Checkmate said data shows that there’s 13.7 million staked ETH and 10 million ether is held by known providers. That equates to 73% of the staked ETH, and the top four providers hold 8. 13 million ETH or 59.3% of the aggregate.
“4. 17M in Lido, 1. 92M in Coinbase, 1. 14M in Kraken, [and] 0.9M in Binance,” Checkmate said. The popular bitcoiner Tuur DeMeester, editor at satoshipapers.org, shared the tweet of the Glassnode analyst. “44% of ETH is staked by just 2 entities, Lido [and] Coinbase. Add Kraken, and it jumps to 52% of total ETH staked by 3 entities,” Demeester wrote. The editor also mocked a tweet written by Vitalik Buterin which talks about the idea of having average users validate the system.
SEC Chair Gensler Hints at Taking Another Look at Staking Coins, Jack Dorsey Shares Anti-PoS Editorial, Ethereum Proponents Believe People Are Getting Ahead of Themselves
Gensler spoke recently about how the Howey test and the staking of coins. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Gensler said: “From the coin’s perspective … that’s another indicia that under the Howey test, the investing public is anticipating profits based on the efforts of others.” While the WSJ said Gensler remarked that he wasn’t referring to any cryptocurrency in particular, many crypto enthusiasts assumed the SEC chair was discussing ethereum (ETH) and PoS coins.
BREAKING: Gary Gensler says using of Proof-of-Stake could trigger securities laws.
In mid-August, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was questioned by a user if the exchange would censor at ethereum protocol levels with validators. The user inquired if he would censor at the Ethereum protocol level with his validators.
Armstrong responded three days later and said: “It’s a hypothetical we hopefully won’t actually face. We’d choose (B) if we had to. We need to see the larger picture. There may be some better option (C) or a legal challenge as well that could help reach a better outcome.”
Many people think that validators may be forced to conform with regulations and censorship. With four centralized entities staking the most ethereum (ETH) today, people have concerns about whether or not validators will be centralized and censor transactions. On September 14, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey shared an editorial published on substack.com that criticizes PoS. The substack.com article is written by Scott Sullivan and it claims that “to be a validator is to live every day walking on [eggshells]” and “PoS is a permissioned system.”
Most of the criticism comes from bitcoiners, who are sometimes called bitcoin maximalists. Ethereum proponents think the idea is absurd and one supporter noted that he would simply jump to an ETH chain that doesn’t censor transactions. Ryan Adams tweeted: “Guys,” “[the U.S. government] doesn’t want to censor [ethereum] validators at the moment. We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. But, if they ever do, I’ll be on Ethereum’s fork that doesn’t censor transactions. It’s that simple. Adams explained that Layer 0 is our security level.
Bitcoin supporter and blogger, Eric Wall, published a Twitter thread on September 16 that details in the case of Lido staking, “Lido isn’t even a pool.” Wall further remarks in his thread that “Lido can’t decide what blocks anyone of their underlying node operators mine.” Wall does disclose that he’s an LDO investor, as lido dao (LDO) is the native governance token for the Lido Finance project.
“Lido cannot fire or remove any stake holders. Not more than 13.1% of Lido validators are based in a single country. Wall adds that the geographic distribution is quite impressive.
What do you think about the criticism against Ethereum and the validators censoring transactions?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Jamie Redman
Jamie Redman, a journalist and financial tech expert living in Florida, is the News Lead at Bitcoin.com News. Redman has been an active member of the cryptocurrency community since 2011. Redman is passionate about Bitcoin, open-source codes, and decentralized applications. Since September 2015, Redman has written more than 6,000 articles for Bitcoin.com News about the disruptive protocols emerging today.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons, Banteg, Alex Svanevik, Checkmate, Twitter,
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. This article is not intended to be a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any products or services. Bitcoin.com does not provide investment, tax, legal, or accounting advice. The author and the company are not responsible for any loss or damage resulting from or in connection to the content, goods, or services discussed in this article.
Ethereum Technical Insights: ETH Crosses $3,100 Mark for the First Time in 21 Days
Ethereum’s price has been exhibiting a narrow intraday range between $3,048 and $3,139. With a market capitalization of $373 billion and a 24-hour trading volume of $9.83 billion, the cryptocurrency shows a mixed technical outlook. At 7: 57 (EDT) on Monday, ether is exchanging hands for just under $3,100 at $3,093 per unit… Read More
25 Fastest Blockchain Networks Revealed, Bitcoin and Ethereum Not in Top 15: CoinGecko
By examining the processing speed of the largest blockchain networks in terms of total value locked on DeFiLlama, CoinGecko outlined the fastest based on the actual and realized transactions-per-speed (TPS) metric.
The report concluded that Solana leads the way, followed by Sui and the Binance Smart Chain. Interestingly, Ethereum and Bitcoin are not even in the top 15.
Solana’s World
Despite its several outages in the past few years, the Solana blockchain has emerged as the fastest on CoinGecko’s list. The average daily TPS stands at 1,053.7, while the network marked a record on April 6 at just over 1,500.
According to the report, this makes Solana “46 times faster than Ethereum, and more than 5 times faster than Polygon, which has the highest TPS among Ethereum scaling solutions.”
Still, CoinGecko said that Solana’s average TPS is still far away from the theoretical maximum speed claimed by the developers of 65,000 TPS.
1/ Which blockchains are the fastest?
Our study shows that @solana has proven to be the fastest blockchain, with its actual daily average transactions per second (TPS) reaching a record high of 1,504 on April 6.
Perhaps due to its speed and the relatively low transaction fees, Solana became the home to numerous meme coins that popped up during this cycle, such as WIF, BONK, BOME, POPCAT, MEW, and others.
CoinGecko’s top 3 list is concluded by two other non-EVM networks – Sui and BSC. The paper said non-EVM blockchains are, on average, 4x faster than their EVM counterparts.
Polygon 8x Faster Than Ethereum
Ethereum transitioned from proof of work to proof of stake in late 2022 but it still cannot find a place within the top 15 on CoinGecko’s list. It takes the 17th spot with an average TPS of 22.7. In contrast, Polygon, the largest layer 2 network on Ethereum, posted 190 TPS.
“Polygon is therefore currently the fastest among the largest Ethereum scaling solutions and 8.4 times faster than Ethereum itself, even as Polygon lags further behind the top 3 fastest blockchains.”
Bitcoin, being among the few networks still on proof of work, is expectedly not in the top positions, either. The world’s largest blockchain’s average TPS was at 10.73, according to CoinGecko, which placed it at the 20th spot. Interestingly, though, Blast, Merlin, Mode, zkLink Nova, and Thorchain ranked behind Bitcoin.
SPECIAL OFFER (Sponsored)
Binance Free $600 (CryptoPotato Exclusive): Use this link to register a new account and receive $600 exclusive welcome offer on Binance (full details).
LIMITED OFFER 2024 at BYDFi Exchange: Up to $2,888 welcome reward, use this link to register and open a 100 USDT-M position for free!
Bitcoin’s most recent run continued in the past 24 hours as the asset’s price climbed to its highest price in over a month at just over $67,400 yesterday.
Ethereum has also joined the party at last, having surged past the coveted resistance line of $3,000 and jumping above $3,100.
BTC Sees 5-Week Peak
Bitcoin suffered a lot at the start of May as it dumped to a multi-month low of under $57,000. It began to recover some ground in the following week when it soared past $65,000 on May 6 but quickly reversed its trajectory and saw its price dropping to under $61,000 on May 10.
The bulls intercepted the move at this point and didn’t allow any further declines. Just the opposite, BTC maintained its ground last weekend and started climbing on Monday to just over $63,000. Another brief correction came on Tuesday to $61,200, but the lowering inflation rates in the US, which were announced on Wednesday, sent the cryptocurrency flying.
In a matter of hours, BTC skyrocketed by several grand and jumped past $66,000. Although there was another brief retracement, the growing Bitcoin ETF inflows meant more price gains for the underlying asset, which charted a 5-week high of over $67,400 yesterday.
Despite losing some ground since then, BTC still trades around $67,000 now. Its market cap has increased to $1.320 trillion on CG, but its dominance over the alts is slightly down to 51.6%.
ETH Goes Beyond $3.1K
The second-largest cryptocurrency was among those who trailed behind in terms of gains, as reported earlier and was losing ground to BTC. This was because ETH couldn’t reclaim decisively $3,000 despite several challenges in the past few weeks.
However, that resistance level finally gave in yesterday, which allowed Ether to shoot up above $3,100 for the first time in over a week.
Most other larger-cap alts are also in the green, with gains of around 1-2%. In contrast, Toncoin has retraced by more than 3%, and so has HEAR, which is down by 4%.
The total crypto market cap has added around $20 billion overnight and is now at $2.560 trillion on CG.
SPECIAL OFFER (Sponsored)
Binance Free $600 (CryptoPotato Exclusive): Use this link to register a new account and receive $600 exclusive welcome offer on Binance (full details).
LIMITED OFFER 2024 at BYDFi Exchange: Up to $2,888 welcome reward, use this link to register and open a 100 USDT-M position for free!
Disclaimer: Information found on CryptoPotato is those of writers quoted. It does not represent the opinions of CryptoPotato on whether to buy, sell, or hold any investments. You are advised to conduct your own research before making any investment decisions. Use provided information at your own risk. See Disclaimer for more information.