Today, April 29, 2024, the number of validators on the Ethereum cryptocurrency network has exceeded 1 million, indicating not only the significant popularity of the Ethereum blockchain but also its high reliability. With 1 million validators, there are 32 million ETH coins or over 100 billion dollars participating in POS mining. At the start of phase 0 POS mining in November 2020, Ethereum struggled to reach the necessary minimum of 16,384 validators. Achieving the milestone of one million included ETH nodes today is undoubtedly a success and recognition of Ethereum as the leading blockchain in the world of cryptocurrencies and the number one among cryptocurrencies supporting POS mining. Bitcoin remains in the first place by a large margin with its traditional POW blockchain.
You can read more about the launch of Ethereum's POS mining in the following articles:
Ethereum 2.0 - Phase 0 launch, new network validators are being recruited.
Ethereum 2 - scored the required number of validators to start phase 0
Such a large number of validators, which likely no one anticipated at the time of transitioning to POS, poses a problem not only for the validators themselves, as it reduces the mining reward for each of them but also for the entire blockchain. As the blockchain gradually slows down due to the increased number of agreements with all participants in the process, missed blocks and slots occur more frequently, affecting the stability of the entire blockchain.
The significant number of validators is associated not only with the emergence of liquid staking (Lido, Rocket Pool, in which one can participate starting from any amount, but also with the emergence of restaking. Through restaking, validators, in addition to a guaranteed income in the Ethereum protocol of 3% per annum, can relatively safely earn up to 20% per annum. Examples of such restaking services include Eigen Layer, EtherFi, Renzo.
Considering today's dynamics of increasing the number of participants in the ETH network, it can be expected that the next round figure of 2 million will be reached in less than 2 years. For the first million, it took almost 3.5 years, as a reminder.
