Ethereum Co-Founder Proposes Major Update To Proof-Of-Stake Mechanism

According to PANews, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a significant update to the Ethereum proof-of-stake consensus mechanism, suggesting that the validator staking threshold be reduced from 32 ETH to 1 ETH. Buterin believes that lowering the minimum staking amount to 1 ETH will address the issue of preventing more individuals from staking independently, thereby democratizing staking and enhancing Ethereum's decentralization. Currently, Ethereum requires 32 ETH to become a validator, a limit designed to balance security, decentralization, and indirect costs. However, Buterin's new proposal argues that this high threshold is a barrier for smaller participants and individual holders who wish to contribute to Ethereum's security but cannot afford the substantial lock-up. Reducing the threshold to 1 ETH would significantly lower the entry barrier, encouraging more individual stakers to join the network and potentially decreasing staking centralization. Buterin believes this aligns with Ethereum's long-term vision of broader user participation. One major challenge of lowering the threshold is maintaining efficiency without overburdening the network. Buterin notes that reducing the threshold will increase the number of validators, which could slow down finality or raise the operational costs of running nodes. To address this issue, Buterin has also introduced the concept of 'single-slot finality,' which aims to speed up block confirmation times, reducing finality from the current 15 minutes to approximately 12 seconds. This improvement would not only enhance user experience but also ensure that Ethereum's security remains robust even with an increased number of validators.