While Ethereum stumbles, Bitcoin follows its route

While the development of Bitcoin (BTC) develops collaboratively and anchoring in the participants of their community, Vitalik Buterin proves that, in his attempt to bring Ethereum (eth) to the network created by Nakamoto, he actually demonstrates how far one of the other is.

And, as Cryptooticias reported, Bugerin, co -founder of Ethereum, intends to “simplify” the base layer of that network, altering its consensus and execution architecture, promising that it will be “as simple as Bitcoin.”

This “recognition” towards Bitcoin marks a contrast to the ambitious roadmap that Ethereum has followed for years, full of complexizations, technical innovations, developments in its main chain and second -layer solutions (L2).

For example, in 2023, Vitalik brought to light endless improvements for that ecosystem:

On the other hand, on May 3, 2025, Vitalik himself said this: «One of Bitcoin’s best things is its simplicity. This simplicity has many advantages. Let’s bring those advantages to Ethereum ».

A change of perspective in Ethereum?

For years, Butein and the Ethereum Foundation (EF) have promoted an intensive development approach, updates such as The Merge and the participation -proof transition (POS) in 2022, improvements in the scalability of L1 and an increasingly complex L2 ecosystem.

In other publications of 2024, for example, Bugerin defended the interoperability between L2, decentralization standards for ROLLUPS and advanced test systems, ensuring being “building the future.”

What these fluctuations actually reflect is a Eloquent Ethereum Centralization Testwhere key entities and figures, such as Buterin, Justin Drake and outstanding developers, delineate the course of the network.

Yes, Ethereum is an open source technology, but does it really work under that format? In essence, Ethereum operates as a company: its leaders point out the way (sometimes sinuous and changing, but that goes forward; other times in directions opposed to the initially marked) and the community follows.

By contrast, Bitcoin lacks a visible face or a central organization that dictates its future. Its development, more genuinely open source, It depends on the community of nodes, miners and developerswho propose and agree improvements without determining authority.

The simplicity of its protocol, now praised by Bugerin, is not accidental: it is the basis of a distributed and decentralized governance It does not depend on a few with a control voice.

Governance and resistance to changes

Bitcoin’s governance is highly decentralized, with changes in the protocol that require a broad consensus between miners, nodes and developers. This makes Bitcoin more resistant to centralized or influenced modifications by a small group.

On the other hand, Ethereum has a more centralized governance, with a strong influence of the EF and main developers. Updates, such as the transition to Pos, have been implemented with less friction, suggesting a greater degree of control by a small group.

Nodes: The distributed voice of Bitcoin

The nodes are guardians of the protocol: they validate transactions, store the network file and participate in governance.

In this regard, Bitcoin decentralization is also reflected in its network of nodes with almost 22,000 full public nodes distributed globally, according to COUNDANCE.

As of May 4, Ethereum maintains a flow of nodes that barely exceeds 8,000 throughout the planet, according to Etherscan:

Although the nodes and validators of Ethereum participate in governance by accepting or rejecting changes through the update of their software, the influence of the main developers and the Ethereum Foundation is significant, which makes the process less distributed than in Bitcoin.

The 8,000 nodes have a role, but their impact is limited by centralization in decision making and technical dependencies.

Work test: Bitcoin’s most inclusive path against Ethereum

Both Bitcoin and Ethereum allow to participate in their consensus systems, but the entry barriers and participation dynamics reveal a clear difference in decentralization.

In Bitcoin, the work proof mechanism (Pow) enables anyone A, for example, with an ASIC such as the S21 Pro antminer, which costs less than 4,000 dollars, or even with a mini ASIC of just 100 dollars, becoming a miner, assuming operating costs. This allows both large mining pools and individual miners to coexist: although pools concentrate power, They do not prevent someone from choosing to underminepromoting a broader and more distributed participation.

In Ethereum, which operates with POS, being validated independently requires a minimum investment of 32 ETH, equivalent to about 60,000 dollars, more operational and hardware expenses. Who cannot reach that figure They must resort to Staking Poolswhich allow to participate with minor amounts, but centralize power in large actors on platforms such as Lido, which controls 26% of Ether in Stake, according to Dunes.

In the past, as Cryptonoticias reported, that led to more than 70% of Ethereum’s validators belonging to Staking Pools.

Thus, Bitcoin Pow proves to be Much more inclusive and decentralizednot imposing such high economic barriers or force users to depend on centralized structures to participate.

In such a way that Bugerin’s recognition to Bitcoin’s simplicity is a winkbut also an implicit admission of Ethereum’s limitations. The gap between both networks is evident: Bitcoin is a system without owners, while Ethereum, despite its advances, remains tied to the influence of its creators.

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