Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin declared on March 15 of this year that it is technically feasible to reduce the minimum deposit amount to become a validator on the network from 32 Ethereum (ETH) to 1 Ethereum.
According to Buterin, the mechanism that enables this change is recursive aggregation of SNARK (Succinct Non-Interactive Argument of Knowledge) proofs. It is a cryptographic system that compresses the verification of millions of participants into a minimal amount of data. Reduce the bandwidth required for your network Process as many validators as possible at the same time.
The costs are specific. In his own words: “Basically, instead of a two-round tally, you probably have to do a four-round tally. This doesn’t affect slot time, but it does affect finality time. Finality is 8-16 seconds instead of 8-16 seconds.” It takes 16-32 seconds ».
The purpose is, at that point, Transaction confirmed irreversibly on the network. Doubling this time would impact applications that rely on quick confirmations, such as decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and bridges between networks.
Validators, on the other hand, are nodes that validate transactions and generate blocks in exchange for rewards in ETH. Currently, to operate it yourself, Entry capital is approximately 70,400 USD. This number was prohibitive for many who rely on pools and platforms that concentrate a lot of power in the hands of a few.
Currently, the protocol is Set the minimum value to 32 ETH Up to 2,048 ETH per validator since the May 2025 Pectra update. Those who do not reach the minimum amount will need to delegate their funds to a staking pool, a platform that pools the ETH of multiple users and centralizes validation power in a small number of operators.
ideas with history
This is not the first time Buterin has raised this issue. Reported by Russian-Canadian developer CriptoNoticias in October 2024 Published an article proposing lowering the minimum amount to 1 ETH It was done as part of a series of improvements to the Ethereum consensus protocol, but it has not been successful until today.
At that time, we also “considered” mechanisms to prevent network overload due to more validators. The March 15 declaration addresses that policy, and more explicit technical changes are now being considered.
There are several potential ramifications if Vitalik’s efforts move forward. more users Ability to run your own validators without relying on poolsThis spreads verification authority among more participants, making the network more decentralized. Similarly, a lower threshold may encourage more holders to stake their ETH, reducing the amount of currency in circulation and impacting the price of ETH.
(Tag Translation) Ethereum (ETH)
