In September 2022, Ethereum transitioned from Proof-of-Work (PoW) to Proof-of-Stake (PoS) during 'the merge' - making it the largest PoS cryptocurrency in terms of market capitalization. With this work, we present a comprehensive measurement study of the current state of the Ethereum PoS consensus layer on the beacon chain. We perform a longitudinal study over the entire history of the beacon chain, which ranges from 1 December 2020 until 15 May 2023. Our work finds that all dips in network participation, unrelated to network upgrades, are caused by issues with major consensus clients or service operators controlling a large number of validators. Thus, we analyze the decentralization of staking power over time by clustering validators to entities. We find that the staking power is concentrated in the hands of a few large entities. Further, we also analyze the consensus client landscape, given that bugs in a consensus client pose a security risk to the consensus layer. While the consensus client landscape exhibits significant concentration, with a single client accounting for one-third of the market share throughout the entire history of the beacon chain, we observe an improving trend.

翻译：2022年9月，以太坊通过"合并"从工作量证明（PoW）过渡到权益证明（PoS）——成为市值最大的PoS加密货币。本研究对以太坊PoS共识层在信标链上的当前状态进行了全面的测量分析。我们对信标链的完整历史进行了纵向研究，时间跨度从2020年12月1日至2023年5月15日。研究发现，除网络升级相关的现象外，所有网络参与度的下降都是由主流共识客户端或控制大量验证者的服务运营商问题所致。为此，我们通过将验证者聚类为实体来分析质押权力的去中心化程度随时间的变化。研究表明质押权力集中于少数大型实体手中。此外,鉴于共识客户端的漏洞会对共识层构成安全风险,我们还分析了共识客户端生态格局。尽管共识客户端生态呈现显著集中化——在整个信标链历史上单一客户端始终占据三分之一市场份额——但我们观察到这一趋势正在改善。