Ethereum Centralization Debate Rages on After Ballyhooed Upgrade

The high-profile upgrade of the world’s most commercially important crypto network was supposed to make it less centralized and vulnerable to attack. A little more than a week after the enhancement, industry observers fear it may have the exact opposite effect.

Crypto enthusiasts are poring over an obscure indicator birthed during the early days of crypto, dubbed the Nakamoto Coefficient, to evaluate the consequences of the ‘Merge’. The event replaced Ethereum’s power-hungry computers called miners with so-called validators that pledge Ether tokens as security so they can profit from ordering network transactions.

Under the old proof-of-work format, 51% of …