The percentage of Ethereum blocks that meet the orders set by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has now fallen to 47%, the lowest level since Oct. 11.
The latest milestone in censorship rollback comes nearly three months after the percentage of OFAC-compliant blocks peaked at 79% on November 21.
OFAC-compliant blocks are those that exclude transactions involving parties sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
A drop in supported blocks could be seen as a victory for those who oppose censorship within the Ethereum ecosystem.
Blockchain consulting firm Labrys, creator of MEV Watch, said in a statement that the drop can be attributed to more validators choosing to use MEV pulse relays that do not censor transactions in accordance with OFAC requirements.
“In particular, the BloXroute Max Profit Relay, Ultrasound Money Relay, and Agnostic Boost Relay have picked up the lion’s share of market share change.”
MEV-boost relays act as trust mediators between block producers and block builders, allowing Ethereum validators to outsource their block production to other block builders.
Lachlan Feeney, CEO of Labrys, said in a Feb. 14 statement that he is happy with how the Ethereum community has responded to the censorship issue since it first emerged after the merger.
He noted that the recent drop in censorship-compliant blocks was particularly notable given that it was achieved without a user-activated soft fork (UASF). He noted that “many members” of the Ethereum community had called for the soft fork before the merger to combat censorship.
“I am incredibly proud of the Ethereum community for the progress we have made on this issue,” Feeney said, adding:
“When we released the MevWatch tool calling attention to a flaw within Ethereum, the community did not bury its head in the sand, but instead rose to the occasion and made significant progress in addressing the issue.”
However, “there is still more work to be done,” Feeney stressed.
Related: Ethereum at the center of the centralization debate as the SEC claims
OFAC most notably sanctioned Ether (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC) wallet addresses that transact using the Ethereum-based privacy shuffling tool Tornado Cash on Aug. 8.
After Ethereum’s first 24 hours under its new proof-of-stake consensus mechanism on September 16, only 9% of blocks were censored by OFAC.
However, this figure rose sharply over the next two months, peaking at 79% on November 21.
The percentage of blocks that are OFAC compliant ranged from 68-75% until January 29, when it was 66%. Since then it has steadily declined despite some minor spikes.