Bitcoin Leads Decentralization Rankings, but Concentration Risks Persist
A recent joint study by ARK Invest and Glassnode ranked Bitcoin as the most decentralized of the three networks examined, ahead of Ethereum and Solana.
The report evaluated the three networks across several key measures, including auditability, ownership distribution, and geographic resilience. Bitcoin scored strongly in these areas, with 63% of its nodes operating behind Tor, a significant proportion that reduces dependence on centralized hosting providers.
In contrast, Ethereum's nodes were more concentrated, with around 49% hosted on cloud providers, while Solana's infrastructure was almost entirely based in data centers due to its heavy hardware demands.
The study also highlighted concentration risks in Bitcoin's mining sector, where just three pools could potentially control over 51% of the network's hash rate. However, ARK and Glassnode emphasized that this does not necessarily imply ownership or collusion among these pools.