proposed by Buterin Ethereum Research Forum Here are some measures: The goal is to promote decentralized staking through anti-correlation incentives. His suggestions are: Punish verifiers Simultaneous failures are more serious, especially if they are controlled by the same entity.
What is the reason for this decision?
Buterin’s rationale lies in the observation that validators within the same cluster, such as staking pools, are prone to experience similar failures due to their shared infrastructure. To reduce this, he recommends penalizing verifiers based on their deviation from the average failure rate and applying higher penalties over a wide range of failure periods.
“Are validators in the same cluster (e.g. same exchange, same users) more likely to miss proofs at the same time than unrelated validators? So, can rewards be adjusted to favor distributed staking? Probably yes.” – Vitalik Buterin via X
Simulations indicate that this approach could level the playing field between large and small Ethereum stakes. This reduces the benefits enjoyed by large objects and makes them more likely to cause spikes in failure rates due to correlated errors.
The main benefits of the proposal are:
- Encourages decentralization by encouraging separate infrastructure for each validator.
- Makes solo staking economically competitive compared to staking pools.
Buterin did not mention reducing the minimum staking amount of 32 ETH, currently worth about $111,500, but did highlight the popularity of staking pools and liquid staking services such as Lido. Lido alone holds $34 billion worth of ETH, approximately 30% of the total supply.
Concerns remain within the Ethereum community about the dominance of services like Lido and the potential for cartelization, which could lead to uneven profits relative to non-pooled capital.
Vitalik Buterin’s suggestion is Dispersion Ethereum’s staking ecosystem. Buterin aims to create a more equitable environment for speakers of all sizes by addressing correlation failures between validators and introducing anti-correlation incentives.
While the community awaits further development and implementation, concerns remain about the dominance of certain staking services and the potential for cartelization. Nonetheless, Buterin’s proactive approach represents positive progress toward a more inclusive and resilient Ethereum ecosystem.