According to U.Today, Ethereum (ETH) is facing a significant challenge with transaction censorship due to the centralization of block production. Currently, two major block producers control 95% of Ethereum's blocks, raising concerns about potential censorship opportunities linked to advanced Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) strategies. To address this issue, Ethereum is planning to implement EIP 7805, an upgrade that introduces Fork-choice Enforced Inclusion Lists (FOCIL) to enhance the blockchain's censorship resistance.
The centralization of block production on Ethereum has created a bottleneck that could compromise the network's decentralization and inclusivity. This situation arises from MEV strategies, where certain network actors manipulate the Ethereum mempool to prioritize specific transactions. The Beaverbuild and Titanbuild groups currently dominate block validation, controlling 95% of it, which poses a risk to Ethereum's transaction validation process.
EIP 7805 aims to mitigate these risks by selecting a set of 16 validators as "inclusion list committee members" for each block slot. These committee members will create inclusion lists, which are lists of transactions from the mempool that must be included in the next block. This mechanism is designed to reduce the power of block builders and their ability to extract additional value. Validators will only be able to vote for blocks that include all transactions from these inclusion lists, ensuring that blocks not adhering to this requirement will not be considered valid.
While EIP 7805 will not completely solve the centralization issues in block production, it is expected to make Ethereum more resistant to censorship. The upgrade is part of a broader vision for Ethereum's future, proposed by Ethereum Foundation veteran Justin Drake, known as the "Beam Chain." This vision includes nine crucial updates to Ethereum's technical structure and transaction processing procedures.
Despite these challenges, the Ethereum community remains optimistic. However, Ethereum's performance against Bitcoin (BTC) has been weak, with the ETH/BTC rate dropping to its lowest since March 2021. As of November 21, the rate fell to 0.03196, indicating that Ethereum has struggled to keep pace with the ongoing cryptocurrency bull run. Nonetheless, the proposed upgrades and continued development efforts reflect the community's commitment to enhancing Ethereum's resilience and functionality.
