Ethereum continues to evolve at a rapid pace, with developers making significant strides in enhancing the network’s core principles: permissionlessness, decentralization, and resilience. As new upgrades like PeerDAS, Verkle trees, and EIP-4444 take shape, the community is increasingly focused not just on what we’re building—but why. Are these improvements truly empowering individual users and node operators? Or are we inadvertently creating new centralization risks?
This article explores three critical dimensions of Ethereum’s ongoing evolution—MEV and builder dependence, liquid staking, and node hardware requirements—and how current and future protocol developments aim to preserve Ethereum’s decentralized ethos while scaling for mass adoption.
MEV and Builder Dependence: Reclaiming Control for Validators
Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) has fundamentally changed the economics of block production since Ethereum’s transition to proof-of-stake. Originally, miners simply prioritized transactions by fee. Today, sophisticated actors can extract significant value through strategies like arbitrage, liquidations, and front-running—creating an uneven playing field where only well-resourced entities profit.
Two primary philosophies have emerged in response:
- MEV Minimization: Reducing MEV opportunities via tools like encrypted mempools or MEV-resistant DEXs (e.g., Cowswap).
- MEV Quarantining: Accepting that MEV exists but isolating its impact through Proposer/Builder Separation (PBS).
PBS allows validators (proposers) to outsource block construction to specialized builders who compete in auctions. This levels the economic playing field—small stakers earn similar rewards as large ones—while shifting complexity away from individual validators.
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However, PBS introduces a new risk: centralization of transaction inclusion. Builders could collude to exclude certain transactions—such as those meant to protect users from liquidation in DeFi protocols—enabling extractive attacks.
To counter this, Ethereum is advancing inclusion lists—a mechanism allowing proposers to mandate specific transactions be included in a block. Originally conceived as a fallback safety measure, inclusion lists are now being reimagined as a foundational tool.
What if, instead of builders crafting full blocks, they were limited to adding only a small number of MEV-generating transactions—say, within a 2.1 million gas cap? In this model, the proposer defines the core block, and the builder merely supplements it.
This philosophical shift—from empowering builders to empowering proposers—aligns with a broader vision: minimizing the "MEV quarantine box". By reducing the builder’s authority, we reduce systemic risk and preserve Ethereum’s permissionless nature.
Additionally, efforts like native support for Account Abstraction (ERC-4337) within the protocol could eliminate reliance on centralized bundlers and relayers, further decentralizing user access.
Liquid Staking: Balancing Accessibility and Decentralization
Today, most ETH staking occurs through services like Lido or centralized providers—not individual solo stakers. While convenient, this trend raises concerns about long-term centralization.
Polls and surveys reveal key barriers to solo staking:
- The 32 ETH minimum deposit
- Technical complexity of running a validator
- Illiquidity of staked ETH
- Security risks of managing private keys
These are not trivial issues. But Ethereum’s roadmap includes multiple solutions already in development:
- Verkle Trees + EIP-4444: Drastically reduce disk space needs and sync times for nodes.
- Single Slot Finality (SSF): Enables larger validator sets, potentially lowering staking minimums.
- 0x01 Withdrawal Credentials: Allow stakers to designate an Ethereum address for withdrawals—enabling trust-minimized staking pools.
- Penalties Capping: Limits losses during slashing events, reducing key management risk.
Yet more can be done. For example:
- We could shorten withdrawal times by allowing faster validator set rotation.
- Reduce minimum stake sizes—even at the cost of temporarily increasing finality time—with SSF later mitigating trade-offs.
But beyond technical fixes lies a deeper question: Should everyone stake?
If staking becomes ubiquitous but most users delegate due to convenience, we risk recreating traditional financial hierarchies—just with blockchain middleware. True decentralization requires active participation, not passive delegation.
The goal should be a diverse ecosystem: robust solo staking for those able, and highly decentralized liquid staking pools for others. Achieving this demands continued innovation in both protocol design and economic incentives.
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Node Hardware Requirements: Making Full Participation Possible
Running a full Ethereum node should be feasible for anyone—not just institutions with server farms. Yet today, even optimized clients like Reth require over 2 terabytes of storage.
High hardware barriers threaten decentralization. If only a few entities can afford to run nodes, we lose censorship resistance and trustless verification.
Solutions are underway:
- EIP-4444: Allows nodes to delete historical data after one year, slashing storage needs.
- Verkle Trees: Enable stateless clients that verify state via cryptographic proofs rather than storing it.
- Type 1 ZK-EVMs: Let nodes verify execution correctness without re-running computations.
Together, these could reduce node requirements to under 100 GB—potentially enabling phone-based or browser-integrated nodes in wallets like MetaMask.
But offloading computation and storage raises valid concerns: Does relying on third parties for proofs or data create centralization vectors?
For history storage, depending solely on block explorers or exchanges creates a "1-of-N" trust model with small N—risky if those actors disappear or collude.
A better alternative? Distributed peer-to-peer networks—like an enhanced Portal Network—where each node stores only a fraction of history. With erasure coding (e.g., via EIP-4844 blobs), data remains robust even if many nodes go offline.
For real-time ZK proving, hardware demands remain high despite advances like Binius or multidimensional gas. A distributed proving network—where many nodes each prove part of a block—could help. If not viable, we may accept higher proving costs but ensure full nodes can still validate blocks directly when needed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is MEV and why does it threaten decentralization?
A: MEV refers to profits extractable by reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions. It favors well-resourced actors who can run complex arbitrage bots, giving them an unfair edge over ordinary validators.
Q: How does proposer/builder separation help?
A: PBS ensures small validators earn similar MEV revenue as large ones by letting specialized builders compete in auctions. However, it risks centralizing transaction inclusion power in builders’ hands.
Q: Can regular users run Ethereum nodes on consumer devices?
A: Not yet—but upcoming upgrades like Verkle trees and EIP-4444 aim to reduce requirements enough to make phone or laptop-based nodes practical in the near future.
Q: Is liquid staking inherently centralized?
A: Not necessarily. While services like Lido dominate today, innovations like 0x01 credentials and decentralized pools are paving the way for more distributed alternatives.
Q: Why is decentralized history storage important?
A: Relying on a few large entities (e.g., exchanges) to store blockchain history creates single points of failure. Peer-to-peer distribution ensures long-term data availability without trust assumptions.
Q: Will Ethereum ever eliminate the need for full nodes?
A: No. Ethereum’s vision includes lightweight clients for everyday users—but full nodes will always be essential for maintaining network integrity and enabling trustless validation.
Conclusion: Staying True to Ethereum’s Decentralized Vision
It’s true that Ethereum development in 2021 leaned too heavily on delegating responsibilities to centralized actors—assuming markets or zero-knowledge proofs would keep them honest. While these systems work well under normal conditions, they can fail catastrophically in edge cases.
The good news? The current roadmap reflects a strong course correction. From stateless clients to inclusion lists, from distributed history storage to native account abstraction, Ethereum is refocusing on empowering individuals—not just institutions.
Scaling shouldn’t mean sacrificing permissionlessness. As rollups scale transaction throughput, Ethereum L1 must remain a resilient, decentralized foundation. Projects that prioritize speed over decentralization may gain short-term traction—but only Ethereum offers a sustainable path forward grounded in verifiable neutrality and open access.
The work is far from over. But with sustained focus on accessibility, resilience, and equitable participation, Ethereum can continue to lead as the world’s most robust decentralized computing platform.
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