There seem to be some unsettling characteristics present already. According to available data, only two addresses control close to 50% of all Ethereum PoS nodes. This finding has sparked some recent worries about centralization.
Immediately following The Merge on Thursday, the development was announced on Twitter by the cryptocurrency market intelligence site Santiment. The post-Merge inflation dashboard from Santiment shows that two addresses are in charge of over 45% of all Ethereum nodes that are used for block validation, transaction processing, and PoS data storage.
At the time of reporting, the first address had validated 188 blocks, or around 28.97% of the total. With 105 blocks validated, the second address has contributed 16.18%, or 105 blocks. Together, these two addresses account for 45.18% of all nodes.
Reactions to the revelation have been mixed, with some supporters noting that it supports their fears about a centralised Ethereum PoS chain. Despite the promise of a greener strategy, the community has expressed some opposition to Ethereum's migration to PoS.
Since nodes would be managed by a small number of chosen individuals, some pundits have already expressed worries about centralization. This would go counter to the decentralised nature of blockchain technology. However, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and other Ethereum engineers frequently dispute such assertions.
Earlier, the blockchain analytics company Nansen issued a report outlining the breakdown of the 13 million+ ETH that are now staked. According to the paper, only five entities account for up to 64% of the 13.4 million ETH staked. Lido, a liquid staking service, has the largest proportion of these five, accounting for 31% of the total.
Concerns about centralization have also been highlighted by the fact that a sizable portion of staked ETH originates from a single company. In the past, there have also been worries raised about the Ethereum network's increased vulnerability to censorship as a result of this centralization. This is mostly because OFAC recently imposed sanctions on cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.
