ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin proposed lowering the minimum deposit requirements for participants in the blockchain network.
In an October 3 post on x, Buterin expressed support for lowering the current 32 eth threshold needed to stake on the network to support individual staking. He believes the current requirement is a barrier to entry for many rather than a bandwidth-based need.
Buterin suggested reducing the minimum deposit to 16 or 24 eth, with a corresponding increase in bandwidth requirements. He x.com/VitalikButerin/status/1841756178692358587?s=19″>fixed:
“I think there is a sensible version of this where we recognize that 32 eth is a much higher barrier than the bandwidth requirement, and we temporarily do a trade where we increase the bandwidth requirement a little and in return , we reduce the minimum participation deposit to, for example. 16 or 24 eth.”
Buterin explained that lowering the minimum deposit would help expand ethereum's staking program and make it more accessible to individual bettors.
He also mentioned that in the future this requirement could be further reduced to 1 eth, depending on advancements like OrbitSSF. Likewise, bandwidth demands would decrease significantly with the full deployment of PeerDAS, a feature designed to improve the sampling of data availability on the blockchain network.
The ethereum co-founder's comments highlight the importance of individual participants to the security and decentralization of the blockchain network. Individual bettors operate full nodes on private computers without relying on third-party platforms or betting pools.
However, the high deposit requirement for betting has deterred wider participation, limiting the number of individual bettors. On-chain data shows that nearly 48% of ethereum staking is controlled by 11 staking providers, with Lido alone managing a significant 24% share.
This high concentration has raised concerns within the community about the dangers of centralization, leading ethereum educator Anthony Sassano to point out the importance of individual staking as “the beating heart of ethereum.”
He x.com/sassal0x/status/1841588660648739002″>aggregate:
“Without individual staking (and the ability to run full nodes at home!), we lose the only thing truly worthwhile in this entire ecosystem: true decentralization.”
