Ethereum's 13,900 nodes are running 1 million validators, with 26% of the supply staked

The 13,900 nodes supporting the Ethereum network are now running more than 1 million validators.

The increase in validators is needed to allow the nodes to stake more ether on the network. These validators are staking over 32 million of ether, worth more than $114 billion at current prices. This accounts for roughly 26% of the total supply, according to The Block's Data Dashboard.

Validators on Ethereum — such as on other networks — help maintain the blockchain's security by proposing and validating blocks, thus ensuring consensus. They do so by staking 32 ether in return for staking rewards.

Staking platform Lido — which allows users to stake smaller amounts of ether — accounts for around 30% of the staked ether, according to a Dune Analytics dashboard created by Dragonfly researcher known as Hildobby.

Both daily and monthly Ethereum staker revenue recently hit all-time highs, per The Block's Data Dashboard.

Are more validators good for Ethereum?

Not everyone in the Ethereum community is convinced that increasing validator counts and increasing amounts of staked ether are a good thing.

Evan Van Ness, formerly the "Chief Decentralization Officer" at the Ethereum Foundation, posted on social media platform X that there's "arguably already too much staked."

Staking pool Novadash's Gabriel Weide, meanwhile, noted that too many validators could conceivably lead to failed transactions.

"The number is impressive but artificially inflated by the 32 ETH cap," Coinbase Wallet creator Peter Kim argued, adding: "That will change soon though."

Kim was referring to the upcoming Pectra upgrade that will raise the maximum amount of staked ether per validator to as high as 2,048 ether. This will mean a much greater quantity of ether can be staked with fewer validators. This is expected by the end of 2024 and will likely have a dampening effect on the number of validators.

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin published a blog post yesterday that proposes a penalty for validators proportionate to their average failure rate — potentially mitigating the advantage large ether stakes have over smaller stakes. He also suggested that failure from multiple validators controlled by the same entity could receive a higher penalty. Earlier this month, he also addressed the topic of "lazy stakers" at ETH Taipei.