Ethereum
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Since Ethereum switched to Proof-of-Stake, staking pools have become a regular mechanism for confirming transactions.
Some critics claim that the net has become more centralized than ever as a result.
StakeWise co-founder Kirill Kutakov shared his opinion on the level of centralization of the Ethereum network after the Merger. StakeWise is a company that provides staking pools for Ethereum and Gnosis Chain. The amount of assets locked in their pool exceeds 75,000 ETH.
Kutakov said that perhaps as early as December 2022, his company will launch StakeWise V3, an open source protocol with a non-commercial license that will allow users to run validator nodes and set up staking fees. Additional measures are also provided to ensure security and attract “stakers”, users who lock their ETH in the staking pool.
Kutakov believes the new protocol will help increase the level of decentralization in StakeWise’s user base and hopes this will become a model that other pools will adopt.
Ethereum censorship concerns may be more prescient than ever, as network performance appears to justify criticism of Ethereum’s centralization.
The top five staking pools currently account for just over 76.38% of ETH locked up; the leader is the Lido pool. Lido is followed by Coinbase, Kraken, Binance, and a pool with an unknown name (given by Beaconcha.in).
As staking pools show an increase in centralization, the active use of the popular Flashbots maximum extracted value service means that the level of censorship is also increasing. According to a report published by Ethereum researcher Tony Warstetter, after the Merger, Flashbots censored all transactions coming from the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash.
StakeWise currently offers Flashbots integration on its platform and intends to offer it to individual stakers in the future V3 protocol. While acknowledging the conflict of ideals, Kutakov stated that the personal views of the team should not be identified with those of the decentralized autonomous organization StakeWise DAO, which is responsible for the overall management of the project.
According to the team, censorship in its various forms is undesirable for Ethereum, and we have publicly expressed support for relays that do not censor transactions — added Kutakov.
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