Cambridge research puts 31% of Ethereum node activity in the US, where a third offline can stall finalization

Nearly a third of Ethereum node activity is hosted in the United States, with roughly 39% across the European Union excluding the UK, according to research published Friday by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance.

The distribution is Western-centric without being concentrated in any single country, Alexander Neumuller, research lead at the center, told The Block's daily show The Starting Block.

The one-third problem

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.

Ethereum does not require half of its validators to fail to cause a live network disruption. Once more than a third go dark at once, checkpoints stop finalizing, he stated, citing the research.