Ether Pledge Providers Ditch Geth for Besu as Customer Decentralization Race Heats Up

In an effort to move towards a more diverse ecosystem of Ethernet execution clients, pledge provider AllNodes has announced a complete transition from Geth to Besu.With this shift, AllNodes has moved away from the use of Geth across its entire network of 23,895 nodes, marking a milestone in the ongoing effort to reduce the current centralization of Geth as the primary client.

AllNodes Migrates to Besu

In a post on X, the unmanaged pledge provider said the decision is a testament to the growing recognition of the need for a more robust and decentralized Ether ecosystem. Although Geth is the most widely used execution client for Ether nodes, analysts are concerned about its dominance and potential security vulnerabilities.Whatsminer Miner

Ether price is trending down on the daily chart | Source: ETHUSDT on CoinSense, TradingView

The transition to Besu is in line with AllNodes’ commitment to providing the most secure and reliable pledge infrastructure for its customers. Developed by ConsenSys, Besu is a high-performance and secure execution client that offers several advantages over Geth.

This development contributes significantly to the decentralization efforts of Rocket Pool, an ethereum pledging protocol that utilizes mini-mining pools. operators of Rocket Pool’s mini-mining pools are free to utilize AllNodes’ pledging and node hosting services. Even though some of Rocket Pool’s mini-mining pool operators are still using Geth, AllNodes’ decision to switch to Besu further enhances Ether’s resilience to potential client failures.

Geth is the preferred Ether execution client | Credit: Client Diversity

The current landscape of ethereum validators is still very much in favor of Geth, with data from Client Diversity showing that over 75% of validators rely on the client. However, given the current recognition that client failures can negatively impact the stability of the network, it is likely that more pledge providers will diversify their base through other providers on AllNodes. If more validators are spread across Nethermind, Geth, Besu, and other clients, Ether will become more resistant to potential forks and security issues.

Ether node operators won’t be bailed out if Geth fails

Marius, an analyst at X, explained that anyone can use any client, and would even prefer Geth, the first popular Ether execution client. however, the analyst insisted that there will be no “bailout” if the network forks.

A flawed Geth would inevitably put verifiers at risk of catastrophic losses, triggering a network fork, as it already controls more than 66 percent of the nodes needed for finalization. Validators running this client could face significant penalties of up to 32 ETH, effectively eliminating their entitlement.KDA Miner

If the reliability of a validator node drops below 100%, the ethereum network will typically “cut” the validator node’s equity. The longer they are offline, the higher the cut penalty.