Anatoly Yakovenko points out a sharp drop in Ethereum nodes
In a new X post, Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko highlighted a large decline in Ethereum full nodes. He cited data from the node analytics website Eth2NodeWatch, showing over 20% of beacon nodes unsynced.
Yakovenko noted that currently there are 8,919 synced full nodes out of a total of 11,381, compared to 1.2 million validators earlier in 2025. His post comes amid broader discussions and comparisons between the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. Addressing concerns about Solana’s declining validator count, Yakovenko mentioned that the blockchain currently has nearly 6,000 full nodes.
According to him, this indicates strong demand for the Solana Foundation Delegation Program. Yakovenko pointed out that delegates profit from running apps, and there are 6,000 fully centralized nodes on the Solana Salami Chain compared to Ethereum’s Beacon Chain. Responding to a user comment suggesting Solana is becoming more centralized, Yakovenko said: “The objective line for decentralization is somewhere in the middle.”
Both Ethereum and Solana secure their networks through staking, where participants lock up tokens (ETH for Ethereum, SOL for Solana) to support validators that process transactions and maintain consensus. Ethereum uses a proof-of-stake (PoS) system via its Beacon Chain, requiring a minimum of 32 ETH per validator, while Solana employs a hybrid PoS model with Proof of History (PoH), allowing flexible staking amounts and prioritizing high throughput.
The two communities disagree over what decentralization should prioritize. Ethereum favors a large validator set, client diversity and home-staker viability, even if that means fewer publicly reachable full nodes per validator and more upgrade coordination across clients. Solana emphasizes high throughput on one layer and concentrates stake with operators that can meet heavier hardware and bandwidth demands. The recent debate over node counts comes alongside Ethereum’s own operational challenges, including outages caused by operator misconfigurations and periods of complex upgrades that place additional demands on node operators.
In another X post, Yakovenko discussed the diversity of cryptocurrencies, noting that what worked for Bitcoin may not work for other projects. He extended this view to startups in general, highlighting the challenges of solving problems and finding product-market fit.
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