Although there is less need on Geth, Lachlan Feeney, the creator and CEO of Ethereum infrastructure company Labrys. Notes that “we can’t declare victory yet.”
After Coinbase recently decided to migrate over half of its validators to Nethermind. The market share of Geth, a significant Ethereum execution client. Dropped from a peak of 84% in late January to 66%. However, one analyst believes that the battle for decentralization is far from over.
Concerns exist that a critical flaw in an execution client with a 66% stake could halt the chain’s finality. Ethereum has long been concerned about the centralization danger that a reduced reliance on Geth helps to mitigate. Nonetheless, one analyst cautions that the sector shouldn’t declare victory just yet.
According to Client Diversity, Coinbase Cloud disclosed on March 22 that “roughly 50%” of its validators had moved to Nethermind. Helping to increase the execution client’s share to 22%.
With Besu holding 10% of Ethereum validators and Erigon (which Coinbase is also supporting) holding 2%, the overall minority client share is approximately 34%.
Execution clients mostly handle smart contracts and transaction management on Ethereum.
Most people agree that Geth is the most sophisticated client. Over the past few years, though, there has been an imbalance in the diversity of execution clients due to its overwhelming popularity among Ethereum validators.
The battle hasn’t ended yet
Lachlan Feeney, the founder and CEO of Labrys, an Ethereum infrastructure company, told Cointelegraph, “We can’t declare victory yet.”
Feeney argues that Geth needs to drop significantly below the 66% threshold to ensure no supermajority bug is possible, and criticizes Client Diversity’s method for obtaining its numbers.
Feeney states that the acknowledgment of the “true victory” won’t occur until no single client owns more than 33% of the market.
In order to diversify executions customers and shield those stakers from a supermajority flaw on Geth, he underlined the need of solo staking.
Superphiz, an Ethereum decentralization advocate, recently alerted that a critical Geth flaw could erase over 80% of the staked Ether (ETH).
Beaconcha.in reports that investors have currently staked 31.5 million Ether, worth roughly $113.5 billion at current rates.
Coinbase stated that it will keep contributing to the decentralization of Ethereum by broadening its own validator set:
“Ensuring the security of our customers’ assets and contributing to the resiliency of the Ethereum network are — and have always been — of paramount importance to us. Diversifying execution clients on our validators helps us accomplish both.”
Long-term, Geth, Nethermind, and Erigon will “evenly distribute” its validators, according to Coinbase.
Feeney noted that Sigma Prime, Kiln, Octant, Lido, Ankr, and Twinstake have also recorded a decrease in dependency on Geth.
