Prysm Reaches 50% of Ethereum 2.0 Nodes
One client seems to be dominating ethereum 2.0 according to Danny Ryan, the ethereum 2.0 coordinator.
“According to some estimates, Prysm nodes account for at least 50% of mainnet nodes, and although this does not map 1:1 to the amount of stake being secured by each client, it is likely directionally representative,” Ryan says, further adding:
“With four production mainnet clients, the ideal distribution is closer to equal weight (25%) across all clients, and certainly less than 50% for any one client.
Given the state of eth2 clients, this is achievable, but it will take the concerted effort of community members and institutional stakers to seek out and adopt the clients with lower shares of the network.”
The problem appears to be the lack of any easily accessible data on just what client has what share.
We’re told there have been numerous breakdown of client shares, but they vary considerably.
In addition some estimate Lighthouse has between 30% and 35% based on libp2p client strings, but this couldn’t easily be corraborated.
Staking providers are likely to use different clients to diversify risk, but due to the lack of easily accessible data, they might be walking blind.
As the ethereum Proof of Stake relies on 66% of clients being honest, it is vastly preferable for any one client to not have more than 30% network share.
A 50% share would be somewhat edgy even for bitcoin, but Prysm seems to take much effort to provide easy to follow guides, with it dominating during the testnet as well.
As eth2 is still quite new, easily accessible and reasonably accurate estimates of client shares are probably still in development and to go out soon.
But for now it may be preferable to use Nimbus or Teku to avoid any additional risks with Ryan stating:
“As someone who has operated all four clients in the past, I can attest – they are all stable and performant, and each has an enthusiastic and welcoming team dedicated to making life as easy as possible for you.”
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