Bitcoin and Ethereum Consensus Thresholds Reached by Three Entities
A joint ARK Invest and Glassnode study finds that Bitcoin and Ethereum each have a Nakamoto coefficient of three under the report’s selected consensus thresholds, while Solana scores 19. The report, “The Decentralization Spectrum: Design Tradeoffs in Digital Assets,” measures how many independent entities would need to cooperate to reach a level capable of disrupting network operations.
For Bitcoin, the study uses a 51% mining-hashrate threshold. In its July 2026 data snapshot, Foundry USA, AntPool and F2Pool controlled 27.27%, 17.06% and 16.96% of pool hashrate respectively, giving them a combined 61.29%. For Ethereum and Solana, the report uses a 33% staking-weight threshold, mainly reflecting the risk of preventing finality. Lido, Binance and Kraken accounted for 23.04%, 8.88% and 6.91% of staked ETH, reaching 38.83% combined. Solana required 19 validators to exceed the threshold.
The findings do not mean that three organisations could fully take over Bitcoin or Ethereum. Bitcoin miners can redirect hashpower between pools, while pools mainly influence block templates, transaction inclusion and ordering. Lido also represents multiple node operators rather than one validator. The report stresses that Bitcoin’s 51% threshold is not directly comparable with the 33% proof-of-stake threshold. Bitcoin remains stronger in independent verification, ownership distribution and geographic resilience, while Solana has more dispersed validator stake but relies more heavily on specialised hardware and data centres.
Neutral
The immediate market impact is likely neutral because the report presents a structural decentralization analysis rather than a protocol exploit, governance change or liquidity event. It does not alter Bitcoin, Ethereum or Solana’s token supply, transaction demand or near-term cash flows.
Short-term trading reactions could still be volatile. Headlines about three entities crossing Bitcoin and Ethereum thresholds may trigger concerns over centralisation, particularly among traders already monitoring mining-pool concentration, liquid staking and exchange custody. That could create temporary risk-off sentiment or widen volatility in BTC and ETH. However, the report’s methodological caveats reduce the likelihood of a sustained sell-off: Bitcoin pool operators do not necessarily control the underlying miners, and Lido aggregates multiple node operators.
For long-term investors, the findings may increase scrutiny of validator distribution, staking concentration, mining-pool migration risk and infrastructure dependence. Similar decentralisation reports have historically generated debate and short-lived price reactions, but they have generally not produced lasting market trends without a related outage, attack or regulatory action. The contrasting thresholds also prevent a simple conclusion that Solana is more decentralised than Bitcoin or Ethereum. Traders should therefore treat this as a risk-monitoring signal, while using hash-rate distribution, staking concentration, exchange flows and network uptime as confirmation indicators.