Cambridge research says the U.S. hosts nearly a third of Ethereum node activity and the EU excluding the UK about 39%, while warning infrastructure and client concentration can threaten finality and decentralization.
Research published Friday by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance found that nearly 31% of Ethereum node activity is in the United States and about 39% is across the European Union excluding the UK, with nodes clustered around Hetzner, AWS and OVH. Research lead Alexander Neumuller said the network is Western-centric but not overly concentrated in any single country, while warning that if more than one-third of validators go offline simultaneously, Ethereum checkpoints could stop finalizing. He also said node and validator counts do not map one-to-one, and flagged client software concentration as a parallel network risk. The findings carry regulatory relevance because the SEC argued in 2022 that U.S.-hosted Ethereum nodes could support U.S. jurisdiction.