Solana beats Bitcoin on one key metric, but a single software bug could still take down the network
ARK Invest and Glassnode have put a new quantity on blockchain seize danger: the smallest group of block-production entities wanted to cross a protocol-relevant management threshold.
Their joint scorecard, revealed Sept. 1, put the threshold at three entities for Bitcoin and Ethereum and 19 for Solana. The identical framework positioned Bitcoin first in its composite decentralization rating. The obvious pressure displays completely different types of network publicity. The coalition wanted to disrupt consensus is one danger measure; possession, infrastructure, software, auditability and exit velocity describe different routes to strain a network.
Institutions contemplating a blockchain as settlement infrastructure should outline the failure they should survive earlier than deciding on a metric.
What the 3/3/19 end result measures
The report calls the measure a important resilience threshold. It asks what number of of the largest entities should coordinate to go a focus level governing block manufacturing or voting energy.
The inputs change by network. Bitcoin weights hash price attributed to mining swimming pools. Ethereum and Solana weight stake, whereas their dashboards could classify a liquid-staking protocol, alternate, distributed validator network, underlying operator or particular person validator as the related entity. Protocol guidelines then decide what a given proportion can accomplish.
| Network | Reported rely | Coordination unit | Risk captured | Outside the measure |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin | 3 | Mining-pool labels by hash price | Concentrated block-template coordination at the report’s threshold | Hardware possession, pool switching and node distribution |
| Ethereum | 3 | Staking entities underneath the report’s taxonomy | Stake focus at the chosen threshold | Underlying operators, assault degree, purchasers, internet hosting and exit queues |
| Solana | 19 | Validators by delegated stake | A coalition crossing the measured one-third voting-power threshold | Common homeowners, delegation sources, software and knowledge facilities |
A seven-day Bitcoin mining snapshot on Sept. 6 attributed 26.88% of blocks to Foundry USA, 16.91% to AntPool and 15.25% to F2Pool. The three swimming pools coordinated block templates for 59.04% of noticed manufacturing, in step with the report’s three-pool end result.
Pool share stays distinct from miner possession. Individual miners provide work to a coordinator and may redirect that hash price. The report estimates that a miner could go away a 1% Bitcoin place in roughly 30 seconds by switching off {hardware}. This mobility makes pool focus essential for short-term censorship and template choice whereas leaving final management of the machines extra dispersed.
Ethereum highlights the classification drawback from the different route. Rated Network, an Ethereum validator analytics provider, listed Lido at 21.17%, SSV at 16.56% and Binance at 7.77% in its Sept. 6 pool view. The identical desk described Lido as 544 entities. One label can due to this fact characterize a protocol, lots of of operators or each, relying on the grouping.
Ethereum’s personal menace mannequin provides one other distinction. Official protocol documentation says at the least 33% of stake can delay finality. More than 50% can censor transactions and management short-range fork selection. At least 66% can finalize a most popular chain and alter finalized historical past. Each assault maps to a completely different threshold.
Solana’s coefficient additionally modifications with stake distribution. Solana Compass, an independent network dashboard, confirmed a Nakamoto coefficient of 18 on Sept. 6. ARK and Glassnode reported 19, whereas the Solana Foundation’s June 2025 health report, utilizing April 2025 knowledge, recorded 20.
Solana Compass defines the coefficient as the fewest validators whose mixed stake reaches 33.4% of voting energy. The Foundation hyperlinks that coalition to censoring blocks or stopping consensus. A worth of 18 signifies that this particular disruption requires coordination throughout extra prime validators than a rely of three would counsel. Shared possession, stake sources, internet hosting, jurisdiction and software create separate exposures.
The dependencies that reshape seize danger
Infrastructure can provide nominally separate entities a correlated failure mode. A knowledge-center operator, cloud platform, authorities or network service can have an effect on many nodes or validators collectively, even when the consensus coefficient appears to be like extensively distributed.
Bitcoin’s node footprint illustrates how measurements can shift with the crawler. The joint report cited 63% of Bitcoin nodes working behind Tor. A Clark Moody network dashboard confirmed 12,959 Tor nodes amongst 26,837 reachable nodes on Sept. 6, or 48.3%. Different node populations and assortment strategies can produce materially completely different shares. In both case, Tor utilization speaks to node visibility and geographic resilience, whereas mining swimming pools stay the direct block-production measure.
Ethereum internet hosting knowledge varies for the identical cause. The report cited roughly 20% of nodes on AWS. Rated Network’s host view confirmed AWS at 14.4% of measured validator hosts. Ethernodes, an execution-layer node crawler, tracks one other slice of the network and separates Amazon infrastructure throughout a number of ISP labels. A single AWS proportion loses that means until the node inhabitants and supplier taxonomy journey with it.
Solana exposes the efficiency facet of the tradeoff. High-throughput validators usually function in industrial knowledge facilities. The Solana Foundation’s dated 2025 report counted greater than 100 suppliers, with TeraSwitch and Latitude internet hosting 45.70% of stake between them. Solana Compass’s present broader view counted 437 knowledge facilities. The giant facility rely coexists with a sizable stake focus amongst the main suppliers.
Client software creates a second widespread dependency. Ethereum’s client-diversity guidance explains that unbiased implementations cut back the blast radius of a shared bug. Rated confirmed Geth at 50.17% of measured execution purchasers. On Solana, the Foundation reported about 92% of stake utilizing Agave/Jito and about 7% utilizing Firedancer or the hybrid Frankendancer in April 2025. These figures measure publicity to a shared codebase, a failure mode separate from deliberate collusion.
Exit velocity determines how lengthy concentrated affect can persist. Bitcoin miners can redirect work with out ready for a protocol queue. Ethereum validators comply with a rate-limited exit course of. ARK and Glassnode’s estimate of weeks applies to pressured situations. On Sept. 6, beaconcha.in’s live queue confirmed an empty validator exit queue and a withdrawal estimate close to one day. Ethereum’s withdrawal documentation explains that the delay strikes with demand.
During coercion, the separation turns into sensible. Hash energy can go away a pool rapidly when miners defect. Stake can stay tied to a validator throughout a congested exit queue, even when a liquid-staking token trades freely. Market liquidity and protocol exit present completely different escape routes.
How establishments ought to learn the scorecard
An institutional decentralization evaluation can pair every menace with the corresponding measure:
- Transaction censorship or finality disruption requires stake or hash-rate focus at the related protocol threshold, with clear entity grouping.
- Coordinated authorized strain and infrastructure outages name for validator and node maps by supplier, jurisdiction and network operator.
- Software faults name for client-share and shared-codebase evaluation.
- Persistent seize requires helpful possession, delegation sources and the time required to withdraw or redirect sources.
- Independent verification and restoration name for the value of operating a verifier and reconstructing network state.
The joint report’s composite rating favors Bitcoin as a result of the framework combines auditability, possession dispersion, geographic resilience, exit fluidity and different dimensions. Solana’s 19-entity end result, now 18 on one stay dashboard, describes one type of coordination danger.
The determine describes the largest-validator coalition wanted to cross Solana’s measured voting threshold. An institutional determination additionally requires the remainder of the map, together with who provides the stake, the place the machines run, which software they share, how rapidly individuals can go away and the way independently customers can confirm the ledger.
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