Percentage Ethereum Blocks Fell to Record Low 47%
2023.02.14 02:44
Percentage Ethereum Blocks Fell to Record Low 47%
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – The percentage of Ethereum blocks that adhere to the instructions issued by the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) of the United States has decreased to 47 percent, the lowest level since October 11.
The percentage of OFAC-compliant blocks reached its highest level of 79% on November 21, nearly three months after the latest milestone in the censorship reversal.
Transactions involving parties approved by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department are excluded from OFAC-compliant blocks.
Those who oppose censorship within the Ethereum ecosystem may view a decrease in compliant blocks as a win.
MEV Watch’s creator, blockchain consulting firm Labrys, said in a statement that the decline could be caused by more validators using MEV-boost relays, which do not censor transactions in accordance with OFAC requirements.
“The BloXroute Max Profit relay, Ultrasound Money relay, and Agnostic Boost relay, in particular, have picked up the majority of the change in market share.”
MEV-boost relays enable Ethereum validators to outsource their block production to other block builders by acting as trusted intermediaries between block producers and builders.
In a statement on February 14, Labrys CEO Lachlan Feeney said he was pleased with how the Ethereum community has dealt with the censorship issue since it first came to light after Merge.
He said that the fact that censorship-compliant blocks have fallen recently without a user-activated soft fork (UASF) is especially noteworthy. He mentioned that, prior to the merger, “many members” of the Ethereum community had requested the soft fork to combat censorship.
Feeney added, “I am incredibly proud of the Ethereum community for the progress we have made with this issue.”
“The community rose to the occasion and made significant progress addressing the issue when we released the MevWatch tool drawing attention to a flaw within Ethereum,” reads the statement.
However, “there is still more work to be done,” Feeney stressed.
Addresses for Ether (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC) wallets that transact with the Ethereum-based privacy mixing tool Tornado Cash were specifically targeted by OFAC.
Only 9% of blocks were OFAC-censored after the first 24 hours of Ethereum’s new proof-of-stake consensus mechanism on September 16.
However, on November 21, this number sharply increased to 79% in just two months.
Until January 29, when it reached 66 percent, the percentage of OFAC-compliant blocks remained in the range of 68 to 75 percent. Despite a few minor spikes, it has decreased steadily since then.
