Ethereum’s Centralization Issues: What Needs to be Fixed
Are you aware of the centralization issues plaguing Ethereum? Well, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, recently shed light on this problem during the Korea Blockchain Week (KBW). According to him, one of the major challenges is the centralization of nodes, and he believes that reducing the cost and difficulty of running nodes is the key to addressing this issue.
The Scale of Centralization
Data from Ethereum mainnet statistics reveals that a significant majority of the network’s nodes are controlled by centralized entities. Shockingly, Amazon Web Services (AWS) handles around 60% of the nodes, while Google Cloud manages 6%. This raises concerns about a single point of failure and the potential for decentralized applications to be shut down if Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, decides to turn off AWS.
The Solution: Stateless Clients
Buterin emphasized the importance of statelessness in resolving the centralization problem. Statelessness allows people to run nodes with minimal hardware requirements, making decentralization accessible to a wider audience. The Ethereum Foundation has recognized statelessness as a crucial element in achieving true decentralization.
“With stateless clients, you can run a node on basically zero… In the longer term, there’s a plan to maintain fully verified Ethereum nodes where you could literally run it on your phone,” Buterin revealed.
Fixing Centralization: A Long-Term Goal
While statelessness is on the Ethereum roadmap, Buterin mentioned that it may take ten to twenty years to fully address the issue. In the meantime, he suggested other steps to enhance decentralization, such as simplifying documentation, removing barriers to distributed staking, and improving scalability.
Hot Take: Prioritizing Scalability
According to Buterin, scalability is currently the most critical concern for the Ethereum network. As efforts continue to tackle centralization, it’s crucial to prioritize enhancing scalability to ensure Ethereum’s long-term success.
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