ETH developer addresses node monopoly problems in advance of the Merge, that is, prior to the Ethereum transition from its current proof-of-work (PoW) mining consensus to a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus. The Coalesce, as it is commonly described, is set for September 15, but Ethereum node centralization has become a hot topic in the lead-up to the crucial update.
The majority of the 4,653 active Ethereum nodes are managed by web application services such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), which, according to analysts, may expose the Ethereum blockchain to a single point of failure following the Merge.
Maggie Love, co-founder of W3BCloud, a provider of Web3 facilities, shared the same concern. She argued that the concentration of nodes in the Ethereum PoS network could become a significant problem that no one was noticing.
Since Devcon IV, the network has been pruned, according to Ethereum’s chief developer, Péter Szilágyi, who addressed the growing centralization concerns. The term “pruning” refers to the process of reducing the size of the blockchain until researchers can create a trusted database of a particular size.
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Szilágyi continued by stating that the proposal was initially received with fierce criticism, and that the current preponderance of nodes is a direct result of this. In order for everyone to operate their own nodes, he underlined that the Ethereum state must have a set size.
The phrase “Ethereum state” refers to a large data structure that includes not only all accounts and balances, but also a machine state that can alter from block to block based on a set of rules. Szilágyi elaborated:
“Ethereum state size must be ‘constant.’ Thus, it will run eternally. If necessary, the characteristic can be increased like the block gas limit, but it must not expand unconstrained. There is no light at the end of the tunnel unless this problem is resolved.
He highlighted that numerous parties are working extremely hard to resolve the issue, but in the interim, the general public should not be criticized for “not wishing to maintain an ever-increasing equipment for running a node.”
Mesari observed in its analysis that the cost of hosting a single node is excessively expensive at the present time. Due to these infrastructure costs, cloud infrastructure service providers such as AWS are frequently utilized. In the long run, such centralization may prove to be a vulnerability.
ETH developer addresses node centralization issues prior to the Merge in what we believe to be crucial moments, as the Merge approaches and the audience must be confident that the internet backbone update will proceed without incident.