**Ethereum Centralization Concerns: Two Block Builders Dominate**

In the first two weeks of October, two Ethereum block builders, Beaverbuild and Titan Builder, produced 88.7% of the blocks on the mainnet, sparking centralization worries. Researcher Toni Wahrstätter attributes this trend to the rise of private order flow (XOF), which limits competition among builders.

However, Ryan Lee from Bitget Research argues that Ethereum's proposer-builder separation design prevents builders from prioritizing specific transactions, easing centralization fears. Yet, some experts warn that powerful validators exploiting maximal extractable value (MEV) incentives could still pose a threat to decentralization.

Wahrstätter suggests that stronger censorship resistance could mitigate these concerns. Despite these issues, Ethereum's validator count has increased by over 30% in the past year, indicating growing institutional adoption and a positive outlook for the network's decentralization.