Measuring the Concentration of Control in Contemporary Ethereum

TL;DR

This paper examines how recent architectural changes in Ethereum, including its shift to PoS and modular design, impact decentralization and control concentration in the network.

Contribution

It provides an updated analysis of Ethereum's decentralization status considering recent infrastructural and architectural evolutions.

Findings

Ethereum's shift to PoS influences control distribution.

Modular architecture introduces new centralization vectors.

Updated decentralization metrics reflect recent changes.

Abstract

Ethereum is undergoing significant changes to its architecture as it evolves. These changes include its switch to PoS consensus and the introduction of significant infrastructural changes that do not require a change to the core protocol, but that fundamentally affect the way users interact with the network. These changes represent an evolution toward a more modular architecture, in which there exists new exogenous vectors for centralization. This paper builds on previous studies of decentralization of Ethereum to reflect these recent significant changes, and Ethereum's new modular paradigm.