According to ChainCatcher, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared a summary of his fireside chat at the Home Staking Summit in Singapore on social media, discussing the actual value of independent stakers (including small businesses and community stakers) to the network, and what changes L1 can make to better support these stakers.
Here are its core ideas:
The dual role of independent stakers: Vitalik emphasized that independent stakers are both the “first line of defense” of the Ethereum network, providing censorship resistance, and the “last line of defense”, protecting the network by preventing 67% of the final confirmation of the erroneous chain.
Importance of decentralization: Independent stakers are typically not affiliated with larger organizations, making them difficult to capture or coerce through regulation, thus strengthening Ethereum’s position as a trusted, neutral blockspace.
Network security considerations: Vitalik discussed the possibility of increasing the consensus threshold (e.g. from 67% to 85%) to enhance network security, but he also noted that this could introduce new challenges, such as reducing the cost of attacks that prevent final confirmation.
Resource Allocation Optimization: He made the interesting point that the current system may overpay to protect against a 33% frontal attack, suggesting reallocating resources to strengthen defenses against more severe attacks.
Expanding the independent staker base: Vitalik stressed the importance of increasing the number of independent stakers as a key component of the current finalization threshold.
Support at the L1 level: He also discussed possible steps that the Ethereum base layer (L1) could take to better support and encourage independent staking.
