The three largest mining entities now hold over 61% of the Bitcoin network’s computing power. Data from a joint study by ARK Invest and Glassnode on September 1, 2026, notes Foundry USA controlling 27.27% of the hash rate, followed by AntPool at 17.06% and F2Pool at 16.96%.
That composition places Bitcoin’s Nakamoto Coefficient at three. The 32-page report, titled “The Decentralization Spectrum: Design Tradeoffs in Digital Assets,” puts Ethereum at the exact same level. Lido with a 23.04% share, Binance at 8.88%, and Kraken at 6.91% collectively cross the 33% stake threshold that controls the network.
However, the matching figures at the block-production layer mask underlying infrastructure vulnerabilities beneath.
Concentrated in Commercial Data Centers
The geographic distribution of nodes reveals striking differences. The Bitcoin network routes 63% of its nodes behind Tor and 15% operate on residential or self-hosted networks, leaving only 16% reliant on commercial data centers.
In sharp contrast, nearly 100% of Solana’s tracked infrastructure runs on commercial servers. These locations are heavily concentrated, with 68% in Europe and 21% in North America.
Physical centralization took a tangible toll during a routing incident in August 2026. Hosting provider TeraSwitch held 30.23% of Solana’s tracked stake, meaning that when the company experienced an outage, 102 of Solana’s 699 validators stopped casting block votes.
Reliance on rented server infrastructure also affects Ethereum, where 49% of execution layer nodes operate on cloud computing providers.
Capital Mobility and Withdrawal Queues
The ability to switch operators marks another key differentiator. Bitcoin miners can shift 1% of their hash power to another pool in just 29 seconds - high mobility that curbs the risk of mining pool monopolies.
Capital allocators on Ethereum face slow withdrawal queues. Withdrawing 1% of staked capital from the network takes 14.6 days under normal conditions, and balloons drastically to 55.6 days during heavy network congestion.
Storage overhead further complicates the resilience matrix across all three networks. While Bitcoin’s historical data remains easily accessible to the public, an Ethereum full archive node requires 2 terabytes of capacity. Solana’s data requirements surge past 480 terabytes, forcing node operators to offload historical ledger data to external providers.
Discrepancies in Report Figures
Regarding validator distribution, Solana recorded a Nakamoto Coefficient of 19 based on the 33% delegated stake threshold. The top positions are held by Figment (3.78%), Helius (3.69%), Jupiter (2.91%), Binance Staking (2.81%), and Ledger by Figment (2.16%).
Solana’s validator distribution crept up from 18 in March 2026. The ARK and Glassnode report contains a typographical discrepancy, citing a coefficient of 20 in the text while displaying 19 across its chart tables.
For crypto investors, these infrastructure metrics provide a concrete perspective. Decentralization is not achieved solely through validator diversity on paper. As long as physical storage and server hardware remain clustered in centralized data centers, outage risks will remain a persistent vulnerability.
Reported by crypto.news.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only, not financial advice. Cryptocurrency assets are highly volatile and carry significant risk. Always do your own research (DYOR) and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
