Glassnode Report Ranks BTC, ETH, SOL Across Decentralization Dimensions
Research firm Glassnode and asset manager ARK Invest have jointly published a report titled 'The Decentralization Spectrum: Design Tradeoffs in Digital Assets', released on September 2, 2026.
The report applies the blockchain trilemma framework to evaluate Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana across six measurable criteria. These dimensions include ownership distribution, exit fluidity, verification costs, critical resilience, reconstruction costs, and infrastructure distribution.
According to the report's findings, Bitcoin ranked highest overall on the decentralization spectrum across the six dimensions measured. Ethereum placed in the middle, balancing multiple tradeoffs across the measured categories. Solana demonstrated the strongest performance on throughput-oriented resilience but scored lower on ownership distribution and verification accessibility.
The report also identified that three entities each crossed the block-production concentration threshold for both Bitcoin and Ethereum. For Solana, 19 validators were needed to collectively exceed the 33% stake threshold used in the study.
Full-node hardware costs were estimated as approximately $289 for a Bitcoin full node, $730 for an Ethereum full node, and $21,478 for a Solana RPC node or validator-class setup. These figures reflect one factor in the broader verification accessibility dimension of the analysis.