The Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance published research Friday showing that nearly one-third of Ethereum node activity is hosted in the United States, with roughly 39% across the European Union excluding the UK. Alexander Neumuller, research lead at the center, stated that once more than a third of Ethereum's validators go offline simultaneously, network checkpoints stop finalizing — a threshold he described as the "one-third problem." The distribution is Western-centric without concentration in any single country, though nodes cluster around three hosting providers: Hetzner, AWS, and OVH.
One-Third Validator Outage Halts Ethereum Finalization
Ethereum does not require half of its validators to fail to cause a live network disruption, according to the research. Once more than a third go dark at once, checkpoints stop finalizing, Neumuller stated. He cautioned that the relationship between nodes and validators is not one-to-one, and that no one knows precisely how many validators run behind any given node.
Nodes cluster around three hosting providers, Neumuller said, flagging Hetzner, AWS, and OVH. Hetzner's terms of service at one point barred running blockchain nodes, though Neumuller said that may have since changed.
Neumuller called the current distribution healthy, offering it as personal opinion rather than a finding, while flagging it as something the community should monitor. "Geographical distribution is something desirable for a network," Neumuller said. Client software concentration presents a parallel risk, since a bug in a dominant client can propagate across the network. The report includes distribution data for both consensus and execution clients.
SEC 2022 Argued US Jurisdiction Over Ethereum Based on Node Concentration
Concentration carries jurisdictional weight. In 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission argued that it had jurisdiction over Ethereum because most nodes were hosted in the United States, meaning that transactions would fall under U.S. securities law.
Ethereum Post-Merge Energy Consumption Drops 99.98% to 7.9 Gigawatt-Hours Annually
The report, titled "Ethereum After the Merge," reworks the methodology behind Cambridge's earlier estimates, incorporating empirical data on how nodes split between residential and commercial hosting rather than theoretical assumptions. Network upgrades after the merge prompted the update, Neumuller said, since software changes can alter how hardware draws power.
Ethereum consumes about 7.9 gigawatt-hours annually, roughly one megawatt of continuous power, or about 2,000 UK households. That is a drop of about 99.98% against pre-merge levels. Sustainable power usage across the network now exceeds 56%, compared with a global average of 43%.
Offsetting Ethereum's total annual emissions with high-quality nature-based removal credits would cost between £25,000 and £55,000 (about $33,500 to $73,800), Neumuller said, comparing the figure to the price of a car. He named it the finding that surprised him most.
The Ethereum Foundation supported the work, Neumuller said, thanking the organization for enabling the new estimate. He has not discussed the centralization findings with the foundation directly and characterized its emphasis on decentralization as his own reading of its public communications rather than anything conveyed to him.
FAQ
What percentage of Ethereum nodes are hosted in the United States?
Nearly one-third (31%) of Ethereum node activity is hosted in the United States, according to research published Friday by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance. Roughly 39% of node activity is across the European Union excluding the UK.
Why does one-third of Ethereum validators going offline stall finalization?
Once more than a third of Ethereum's validators go dark at once, network checkpoints stop finalizing, according to the Cambridge research. Ethereum does not require half of its validators to fail to cause a live network disruption.
How much energy does Ethereum consume after the merge?
Ethereum consumes about 7.9 gigawatt-hours annually, roughly one megawatt of continuous power, or about 2,000 UK households. This represents a drop of about 99.98% against pre-merge levels, according to the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance report titled "Ethereum After the Merge."
