ARK Invest Study Ranks Bitcoin as Most Decentralized Network

The study, titled The Decentralization Spectrum, quantifies the number of entities required to disrupt each network’s block-production threshold. Bitcoin requires three mining pools to reach a 51% hash-rate majority, while Ethereum similarly needs three entities to cross a 33% stake threshold. Solana, by contrast, requires 19 validators to reach that same 33% mark.

Researchers cautioned against interpreting these "Nakamoto coefficients" as direct evidence of corporate control. In the case of Bitcoin, mining pools act as coordinators; independent miners can redirect their power in roughly 29 seconds, a fluidity that contrasts sharply with Ethereum’s staking exit mechanics, which can take weeks during periods of high congestion.

Infrastructure distribution remains the most significant differentiator. While Bitcoin nodes are largely dispersed—with 63% operating anonymously via Tor—Solana relies heavily on commercial data centers, with nearly all measured infrastructure hosted in centralized facilities. This reliance creates vulnerability to correlated failures, as demonstrated by a recent routing issue that caused over 100 Solana validators to stop voting simultaneously.

Ultimately, the report identifies a clear trade-off between throughput and accessibility. Bitcoin’s hardware requirements for a full node remain modest at approximately $289, whereas reconstructing Solana’s history demands significantly more resources, often requiring external data providers. The findings suggest that decentralization is not a singular value but a spectrum, with Bitcoin leading in auditability and geographic resilience, while Solana prioritizes high-performance throughput at the cost of infrastructure diversity.