Cambridge Research: 31% of Ethereum Node Activity Located in the US, One-Third of Nodes Offline Can Block Network Finality

According to The Block, the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF)'s newly released report "Ethereum After the Merge" shows that approximately 31% of Ethereum node activity is located in the United States, with 39% distributed across the European Union (excluding the UK), presenting an overall Western-centric centralization pattern. The report points out potential centralization risks in the Ethereum network—nodes are highly concentrated among three major hosting providers: Hetzner, AWS, and OVH. Once more than one-third of validators go offline simultaneously, network checkpoints will stop finalization (Finalization). Additionally, the report recalculated Ethereum's energy consumption; annual electricity consumption after the Merge is approximately 7.9 GWh, a decrease of approximately 99.98% compared to before the Merge, with sustainable energy accounting for over 56%, and the cost required to offset its annual carbon emissions is only about $33,500 to $73,800.