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ARK Invest and Glassnode published a joint study on Sept. 1 that found three entities could cross the measured block-production thresholds for both Bitcoin and Ethereum, while Solana required 19.

Summary

Bitcoin reaches its 51% hash-rate threshold through three mining pools, according to the joint report. Ethereum requires three staking entities to exceed 33%, although pooled delegation complicates direct control assumptions. Solana’s Nakamoto coefficient is 19, but nearly all measured infrastructure operates inside commercial data centers. Bitcoin’s infrastructure is comparatively dispersed, with 63% of measured nodes operating anonymously through Tor networks. Ethereum hosts roughly 49% of execution-layer nodes in clouds, including 20% through Amazon Web Services. The 32-page report, titled The Decentralization Spectrum: Design Tradeoffs in Digital Assets, compares the networks across ownership, exit fluidity, verification costs, critical resilience, reconstruction costs and infrastructure distribution.

The findings do not mean three companies control Bitcoin or Ethereum. The metric counts mining pools and staking platforms as entities, even when the underlying hardware, stake or node operators belong to separate participants who may withdraw or redirect their resources.

Bitcoin’s three-pool threshold does not equal ownership The report applied a 51% hash-rate threshold to Bitcoin. Foundry USA represented 27.27% of the measured hash rate, followed by AntPool at 17.06% and F2Pool at 16.96%. Together, the three pools exceeded 61%.

This produced a Nakamoto coefficient of three, defined as the minimum number of measured entities needed to cross a network’s critical production threshold. ViaBTC controlled another 9.50%, while SpiderPool represented 5.82%.

Mining pools coordinate block construction and distribute rewards, but they do not necessarily own the machines producing their hash rate. Independent miners connect to pools to receive steadier income and can redirect their computing power elsewhere.

That mobility limits how closely pool concentration can be equated with permanent control. The report estimated a Bitcoin miner could switch a 1% hash-rate position in approximately 29 seconds. A coordinated attack or censorship attempt could prompt participants to leave the responsible pools.

Pools still influence transaction inclusion and ordering because they usually provide the block templates miners use. Pool concentration therefore represents an operational risk, even if it overstates the concentration of underlying mining ownership.

The issue is not new. Earlier crypto.news reporting found that two mining pools produced a majority of sampled Bitcoin blocks in late 2022. Pool shares have changed since then, but production continues to be concentrated among several large coordinators.

Ethereum crosses a lower threshold through pooled stake ARK and Glassnode applied a 33% stake threshold to Ethereum because participants controlling one-third of staked ETH can disrupt finality. This differs from Bitcoin’s 51% majority threshold, so the two coefficients do not describe identical powers.

Lido represented 23.04% of staked ETH in the report’s July data. Binance controlled 8.88%, and Kraken held 6.91%. Those three entities collectively represented approximately 38.8%, taking Ethereum above the selected threshold.

Lido is not a single validator. It distributes stake among multiple node operators, although those operators participate through a common protocol and governance framework. The report therefore treats Lido as shared infrastructure that aggregates economic weight rather than one machine or company directly controlling every validator.

Ethereum’s exit mechanics also restrict validator mobility. The report estimated that exiting a 1% position would take around 14.6 days under current conditions and as long as 55.6 days under heavy congestion. That is much slower than redirecting Bitcoin hash rate.

Client diversity provides another layer of resilience. The study placed Geth’s execution-client share at 34.88%, followed by Nethermind at 26.96% and Reth at 18.98%. Lighthouse represented 54.16% of consensus clients.

Different clients independently implement Ethereum’s rules, reducing the portion of the network exposed to one software defect. The relationship between Ethereum nodes and their software clients means validator concentration alone cannot describe the network’s full failure risk.

Solana’s 19-validator result comes with infrastructure costs Solana recorded the highest Nakamoto coefficient for the selected block-production threshold. The report found that 19 validators were needed to control more than 33% of delegated stake.

Figment was the largest individual validator at 3.78%, followed by Helius at 3.69%, Jupiter at 2.91%, Binance Staking at 2.81% and Ledger by Figment at 2.16%. The remaining 84.65% was spread across other validators.

One passage in the report says Solana requires 20 entities, but its chart, comparison table and published Glassnode summary all report a coefficient of 19. The table also says the figure increased from 18 in March 2026.

Solana’s validator distribution performed well on this particular measure, but its physical infrastructure was more concentrated. Approximately 100% of the infrastructure measured by the researchers operated in commercial data centers. About 68% was in Europe, while 21% was in North America.

TeraSwitch hosted 30.23% of measured stake, and the top two hosting companies served around 35.7%. Common infrastructure can create correlated failures even when the validator set contains many separate operators.

That risk became visible in August when 102 of 699 Solana validators stopped voting during a TeraSwitch routing problem. Solana continued processing transactions, but the episode showed how one infrastructure failure can affect multiple otherwise independent validators.

The report used Solana geographic data from November 2024, while most Bitcoin and Ethereum infrastructure data came from July 2026. That timing difference limits direct comparisons and leaves room for Solana’s distribution to have changed.

Bitcoin leads infrastructure resilience and auditability Bitcoin had the least expensive verification requirements in the study. The researchers estimated hardware for a full node at $289, compared with $730 for Ethereum and $21,478 for a Solana RPC node or validator-class configuration.

Its measured full-chain storage requirement was 753 gigabytes. Ethereum required approximately two terabytes for a full archive setup, while reconstructing Solana’s history was estimated at 480 terabytes because historical data is commonly offloaded to external providers.

Bitcoin also had the most distributed hosting profile. Only 16% of measured infrastructure operated in data centers, while 63% of nodes used Tor. Another 15% was residential or self-hosted.

Ethereum placed approximately 49% of execution-layer nodes in cloud environments and 45% in self-hosted settings. AWS alone hosted around 20%, while the top two providers accounted for approximately 27%.

Solana’s higher hardware and bandwidth demands reflect its focus on throughput. The tradeoff is that fewer ordinary users can independently recreate or verify the full network history using consumer equipment.

No single score settles blockchain decentralization The report ultimately ranked Bitcoin as the most decentralized of the three networks overall, followed by Ethereum and Solana. Bitcoin led in ownership distribution, auditability and geographic resilience.

Ethereum generally occupied the middle across the six dimensions. Solana scored strongly for its critical resilience threshold and validator participation but ranked lower for ownership distribution, verification accessibility and infrastructure diversity.

The methodology remains sensitive to how entities are grouped. Exchanges can hold tokens for many customers, mining pools aggregate independent miners, and staking protocols coordinate multiple operators. Wallet-size bands can likewise combine custodial assets belonging to thousands of users.

The comparison is therefore more useful as a map of separate concentration risks than as a definitive ranking. A network may distribute block production broadly while relying heavily on several hosting companies, software clients or governance organizations.

Future editions could improve comparability by using synchronized data dates, separating pools from underlying resource owners and distinguishing censorship thresholds from thresholds capable of rewriting finalized history.

FAQs Do three entities control Bitcoin? No. Three measured mining pools exceeded 51% of hash rate, but independent miners supply much of that computing power and can change pools.

Can three Ethereum platforms rewrite the blockchain? The report’s three-entity figure concerns the 33% stake threshold associated with disrupting finality. It does not represent the stronger two-thirds threshold needed for other consensus actions.

Why does Solana score 19? The 19 figure is the minimum number of validators whose combined delegated stake exceeds the report’s 33% threshold.

Which blockchain did the report rank as most decentralized? Bitcoin ranked highest overall due to its accessible verification, dispersed ownership and comparatively resilient geographic infrastructure.

PANews August 7 news, THENA released “The ARK Initiative” proposal, proposing integrated adjustments to protocol fee distribution, token emissions and resource framework. According to the plan, spot trading fees are proposed to be distributed 40% to veTHE voters, 60% to the protocol treasury, and the distribution of trading fees to theNFT under the original structure will be suspended.

THE emissions are proposed to be adjusted to: 77.5% for LP incentives (previously 67.5%), 15% for veTHE rebase (previously 30%), 2.5% to developer wallets, and 5% to the protocol treasury. The protocol treasury, under the supervision of the foundation, will be used for product development, security, ecosystem activities, TVL growth, marketing, partnerships, and potential protocol value accumulation initiatives.

THENA stated that the foundation previously assessed funding the transformation through an additional 10% THE issuance, but after further review, it believed this could cause unnecessary dilution and affect community alignment, so it decided not to proceed. This proposal has not minted any tokens, and the ARK initiative will not introduce this additional supply. The initiative is currently in the community discussion phase and will later enter governance voting.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest bought more Circle Internet Group (NYSE:CRCL) shares. The buy move follows the stablecoin issuer’s major regulatory breakthrough in New York.

Cathie Wood’s ARK Snaps Up Circle Stock Circle stock closed at $62.61, down $1.63, or 2.54%, on Friday, July 31. Nearly $6.83 million in nearly 109,129 Circle shares were acquired by ARK based on the closing price. The stock purchases were made through ARKK, ARKW and ARKF with 77,103, 22,238 and 9,788 shares of CRCL stock bought respectively.

Cathie Wood’s CRCL stock purchase came on the heels of  the New York Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) granting a limited-purpose trust charter to Circle Internet Trust Company LLC (Circle New York Trust).

Besides Circle shares, ARK bought 298,243 CoreWeave shares, 12,512 shares of the 3iQ Solana Staking ETF, 7,500 Pony AI shares, and 2,700 Kodiak AI shares. The Cathie Wood-led firm also cut down its stakes in Shopify, Cloudflare, CrowdStrike, Snowflake, 10x Genomics, Komatsu, Brera Holdings, Iridium Communications, and Figma.

Earlier, Cathie Wood raked in millions worth of SpaceX and Tesla shares alongside Circle.

About The NYDFS License For USDC The new charter enhances Circle’s regulatory framework. It merges state regulation of the issuance of USDCs with the federal trust powers the company acquired earlier this month from the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

Moreover, Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Allaire called the approval a long-held goal. It helps put USDC within a “strong, respected framework as digital dollars become central to the global financial system,” Allaire remarked.

The New York trust company will be given fiduciary power, Circle said. It will also be permitted to use New York banking law to engage in virtual currency business. The company intends to slowly transition to the USDC issuance on the company’s New York entity. It will retain the custody and collateral trustee services via its federally chartered national trust bank.

Moreover, the approval from NYDFS follows Circle’s final OCC authorization. The previous approval saw a 10% rise in CRCL shares on July 10. However, the stock has witnessed a significant decline since then.

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Bitmine Immersion Technologies is within striking distance of a goal that sounded almost absurd when it was first announced: owning 5% of all circulating Ethereum. The NYSE-listed company (ticker: BMNR) currently holds between 5.54 million and 5.77 million ETH, representing approximately 4.59% to 4.78% of the estimated 120.7 million ETH in circulation. That leaves roughly 507,000 ETH between Bitmine and its target of 6.035 million ETH.

From Bitcoin mining to Ethereum treasury Bitmine’s journey here is one of the more dramatic corporate pivots in recent crypto history. The company originally focused on Bitcoin mining, and at some point leadership decided the better play was accumulating ETH as a primary reserve asset rather than mining BTC.

Chairman Tom Lee has been the architect of what the company calls the “alchemy of 5%.” The underlying strategy is straightforward: buy a lot of Ethereum, then buy more, then stake it for yield while continuing to buy.

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The company’s total crypto and cash holdings now sit between $9.6 billion and $11.3 billion. Bitmine’s stock has become one of the most actively traded equities in the US market, with daily volumes reaching into the hundreds of millions and sometimes billions of shares.

The institutional backing tells a story The company has attracted institutional backing from ARK Invest, led by Cathie Wood, alongside Founders Fund and Pantera Capital.

Staking as an income engine In 2026, the company launched its Made-in-America Validator Network, or MAVAN, a staking infrastructure designed to generate yield on its holdings. The reported 7-day staking yield sits at 2.99%, which on a base of roughly 5.5 million ETH translates to a meaningful income stream.

What this means for investors and the ETH market Chairman Tom Lee has indicated that Bitmine plans to moderate its purchasing pace as it approaches the 5% threshold. For the broader Ethereum market, Bitmine’s accumulation raises questions about supply concentration: when a single corporate entity holds nearly 5% of a network’s circulating supply, a locked-up, staked treasury of that size effectively removes a substantial portion of supply from active circulation. If ETH’s price drops significantly, the staking yield provides some cushion, but 2.99% doesn’t fix a 40% drawdown.

Investors watching BMNR should pay close attention to the pace of remaining purchases, any changes in staking yield as the validator network scales, and whether the institutional backers maintain or increase their positions as Bitmine closes in on its target.

Disclosure: This article was edited by Editorial Team. For more information on how we create and review content, see our Editorial Policy.

Solmate Infrastructure has lost about 98% of its market value since ARK Invest and Abu Dhabi-based Pulsar Group backed a $300m financing tied to its Solana treasury plan. 

Summary

Solmate shares collapsed after its football-to-Solana pivot tied public equity value closely to SOL prices. RockawayX-linked RBCH claims directors diluted shareholders while Solmate says the claims are retaliatory and false. The case lands before Solmate’s AGM where disputed shares may affect board voting power control. The Nasdaq-listed company, formerly Brera Holdings, traded near $4.72 on Friday after its sharp post-pivot selloff.

The company had run a football holding business with stakes across Italy, North Macedonia, Mozambique and Mongolia. It changed course in 2025, raising capital to build a Solana treasury and crypto infrastructure business in the United Arab Emirates. 

As previously reported, Solmate launched with $300m to establish a Solana treasury in the UAE with backing from ARK Invest, Pulsar Group, RockawayX and the Solana Foundation.

Solmate Shares Drop Over 98% After $300M Financing and Solana Treasury Pivot

Cathie Wood-backed Solmate has fallen more than 98% since completing a $300 million financing and pivoting to a Solana treasury strategy. Formerly known as Brera Holdings, Solmate announced its… pic.twitter.com/czn5GnosKc

— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) June 26, 2026 Lawsuit adds pressure before AGM RBCH Ltd., an entity linked to RockawayX founder Viktor Fischer, filed a derivative lawsuit against Solmate’s officers and directors in New York. The complaint accuses the board of breach of fiduciary duty, shareholder oppression and self-dealing. RBCH says it owns more than 10% of Solmate and wants the court to block recently issued shares from being voted.

The lawsuit centers on share deals involving CEO Ron Sade and board member Keren Maimon. RBCH claims they bought about 2.3m new shares at $4.97 each, diluting shareholders by about 20%. It also says the deal came before the board rejected a Forward Industries proposal that valued Solmate at $7.19 per share.

Solmate rejects RockawayX claims Solmate has denied RBCH’s claims and framed the dispute as part of a failed business transaction. The company said it is trying to protect shareholders from what it called “a fraudulent campaign” linked to Fischer and RockawayX. RBCH later said Solmate’s response was “false, misleading, and a retaliatory response” to its lawsuit.

The fight comes ahead of Solmate’s June 26 annual general meeting in Abu Dhabi. RBCH wants shareholders to withhold support from Sade and Maimon. It also wants the court to reverse the disputed share transaction and review advisory and pay arrangements tied to directors. The case also follows leadership changes, including the departure of former CEO Marco Santori.

Football exits and treasury risks Solmate has also reduced its legacy football operations. Its teams in Mozambique and Mongolia were discontinued, while its stake in Italian club Juve Stabia was sold for €1 plus liabilities. The company reported a net loss of about €378,000 in 2025 and completed a one-for-ten reverse stock split in May to meet Nasdaq’s minimum bid price rule.

The company’s Solana strategy has faced the same pressure hitting other listed crypto treasury firms. SOL trades near $68, far below levels seen during the prior market cycle. As crypto.news reported, Solmate raised $11.4m in a premium stock offering in May as it kept building its treasury plan.

Previously, crypto.news explored how the crypto treasury boom split as Solana treasury firms faced losses. In a previous article, crypto.news discussed Forward Industries nearing a $1b Solana paper loss. Solmate now faces both market pressure and a boardroom dispute at the same time.