Effect of ‘The Merge’ on Ethereum Showed Increased Centralization

‘The Merge’ on Ethereum

  • After the Merge, Ethereum blockchain became more centralized.
  • Coinbase and Lido added more than 40% of the network’s block.

Increased Centralization on Ethereum Blockchain Network

The most-awaited transition on Ethereum blockchain has completed successfully. This transition by the developers aims to overcome centralization on the Ethereum blockchain network by making it quite hard for any individual entities that may manipulate with the Ethereum ledger. But contrary to that, the current signs of network integration do not follow the developers intentions.

Martin Köppelmann, co-founder of Gnosis, shared a Tweet in which he mentioned that “Out of the last 1,000 blocks, 420 have been built by just Lido and Coinbase.”

Additionally, in the Twitter thread he continued by saying that the top seven entities have controlled more than two-third of the stake is pretty disappointing to see tbh. Lido, a liquid staking solution for PoS blockchains like Ethereum, owns the most 27.50% of the network’s stake. On the other hand, Coinbase, the world’s third-largest crypto exchange, owns 14.50% of the network’s stake.

Additional Highlights

The major concern of centralization took many to compare ETH under PoS to the sorts of centralized fiat currencies that blockchains attempted to circumvent.

Chris Terry, an executive at a crypto lending platform, SmartFi, expressed his thoughts as “This is consolidation and consolidation = centralization. And that is very dangerous. Why? Because exchanges are under government control. Without question the Ethereum blockchain is now subject to ‘transaction censorship’.”

Max Gagliardi, co-founder of Ancova, also shared a Tweet in which he mentioned that “ETH is now exclusively created digitally by set parameters under the control of its central planners.”

The current trading price of Ethereum is $1,464.91 USD with 9.25% down in the past 24 hour.

Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/09/16/effect-of-the-merge-on-ethereum-showed-increased-centralization/