Unveiling Ethereum's Hidden Centralization Incentives: Does Connectivity Impact Performance?

TL;DR

This paper investigates how Ethereum's peer-to-peer network connectivity influences consensus client performance and uncovers potential centralization incentives affecting network resilience.

Contribution

It introduces a methodology to measure consensus client performance based on message latency and analyzes how network connectivity impacts Ethereum's decentralization and performance.

Findings

Connectivity affects message latency and network performance.

Network incentives may lead to centralization risks.

Latency varies across different geographic locations.

Abstract

Modern public blockchains like Ethereum rely on p2p networks to run distributed and censorship-resistant applications. With its wide adoption, it operates as a highly critical public ledger. On its transition to become more scalable and sustainable, shifting to PoS without sacrificing the security and resilience of PoW, Ethereum offers a range of consensus clients to participate in the network. In this paper, we present a methodology to measure the performance of the consensus clients based on the latency to receive messages from the p2p network. The paper includes a study that identifies the incentives and limitations that the network experiences, presenting insights about the latency impact derived from running the software in different locations.