2024-04-28
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has expressed his opinion on the centralization concerns surrounding the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus that Ethereum previously operated on.
In response to members of the Ethereum community expressing their desire for the network to remain on PoW, Buterin acknowledged that PoW had its own centralization issues.
However, he pointed out that these concerns were not as prominent when PoW was the consensus mechanism on Ethereum.
The conversation was initiated by Amanda Cassatt, CEO of Serotonin, who observed individuals wishing that Ethereum's transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) had never occurred.
Cassatt highlighted the centralization risks and the balance of power as the main contributing factors. She noted that Ethereum's validation process became more centralized with PoS, as it removed the initial checks and balances in the ecosystem.
Buterin supported his viewpoint by presenting a graph that demonstrated the control Ethereum miners had when the network operated on PoW.
The graph revealed that Spark Pool held 33% of the mining power, while Ethermine had 21%. Other miners with significant control included Zhizhu.top, Nanopool, and F2Pool.
However, Buterin argued that Ethereum's PoW centralization did not cause much concern among stakeholders because they understood that it was only a temporary stage until the migration to PoS.
He also mentioned that the impending switch to PoS likely prevented significant development of Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs), as there was no longer an incentive to invest in them.
It is worth noting that Ethereum completed its transition to PoS in September 2022. Since then, validators have staked 32.5 million ETH tokens on the Beacon Chain staking contract, with a total value of over $101.5 billion based on the current price of ETH at $3,125.
