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- Vitalik Buterin revealed that the PoW consensus had centralization issues.
- His revelation responded to the view some ETH members wished the network never transitioned to PoS.
- The concern stems from claims that Ethereum PoS has centralization and balance of power risks.
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has voiced that the proof-of-work (PoW) consensus, which Ethereum previously operated on, has a considerable doze on centralization. Buterin shared this perspective in a recent post on X. His remark responded to a sentiment that some Etherereum community members are expressing the wish that the network had remained on PoW instead of transitioning.
Amanda Cassatt, the CEO of Serotonin, sparked the conversation, claiming to observe individuals who wished Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake (PoS) had never happened. According to her, the main contributing factors include centralization risks and balance of power. Cassatt noted that Ethereum has more centralized validation and that the PoS consensus removed the initial checks and balances in the ecosystem.
Joining the conversation, Buterin highlighted that PoW “was also quite centralized.” However, according to him, the PoW’s centralization attracted less attention when it was the consensus mechanism on Ethereum. Buterin backed his view with a graph illustrating the control Ethereum miners had when it operated on PoW.
According to the chart, Spark Pool controlled as much as 33% of the mining power, while Ethermine had 21%. Other miners with considerable control included Zhizhu.top, Nanopool, and F2Pool.
PoW was also quite centralized. It was just not talked about as much, because everyone knew it was only a temporary stage until PoS.And that doesn't even get into how we probably mostly avoided ASICs only because the upcoming PoS switch meant no incentive to build them. pic.twitter.com/OhaqmRiiGJ— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) April 26, 2024
Meanwhile, Buterin suggested Ethereum’s PoW centralization did not raise eyebrows because stakeholders knew that “it was only a temporary stage until [the] PoS” migration. Furthermore, Buterin pointed out that Ethereum likely evaded significant ASIC (Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) development due to the impending switch to PoS, which removed the incentive to invest in ASICs.
Notably, Ethereum migrated to PoS in September 2022. Since then, validators have committed 32.5 million ETH tokens on the Beacon Chain staking contract. These staked tokens are worth over $101.5 billion, with the price of ETH at $3,125.
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