Ethereum has reached another milestone following the number of validators on its network now exceeds 500,000, BeaconScan reveals from your data.
Validators are essential in guaranteeing the integrity and security of the Ethereum network. They operate on the basis of consensus, processing transactions on the blockchain while checking whether the conditions defined in the smart contract code of each transaction have been met.
A validator must deposit 32 ETH (roughly $45,000) to run a dedicated staking node on the proof-of-stake blockchain. Today, staked ETHs are locked in the network. Validators receive staking rewards from Ethereum inflation. But they won’t be able to access the tethered staked devices until the Shanghai update, which is expected in March. The Shanghai upgrade will enable the allocation of staked ethers for the first time.
The increase in the number of active validators is a positive sign for the Ethereum ecosystem, said John Jefferies, head of marketing at Blocknative, a real-time Web3 infrastructure company.
“The 500,000 active validators on the network indicate growing trust, positive market sentiment and belief in the Ethereum ecosystem as a whole.” Jefferies said.
Jefferies predicted that once the Shanghai upgrade is complete and staked ETH becomes available, a more liquid and free-running ecosystem is likely to emerge.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if even more validators appeared following the Shanghai upgrade. Because users would be reassured that they can certainly access their previously staked ethers.” – He told.
Ethereum’s centralization is also strong
The total staked value of Ethereum staking recently reached 16 million ETH, which is more than $22 billion. This suggests that attacking the network’s consensus would be extremely difficult and expensive, said Ben Edgington, a senior product manager at ConsenSys.
“We can examine the security of the Ethereum network on two axes. One is the total staked value.” Edgington said. “The other is the degree of decentralization“.
Although decentralization is a little more difficult to analyze since many validators are operated by the same organizations, there are still reportedly at least 11,400 physical nodes operating in 80 countries around the world.
“This is considered a significant degree of decentralization and is much more distributed than it was under proof-of-work before the Merge” said Edgington. “Many of these nodes are run by home stackers like myself, which underpins the protocol with enormous flexibility and diversity”.
