Germany has the second-largest concentration of Ethereum validator nodes, thanks to the country’s early entrant advantage in the blockchain sector.
Germany operates one of the world’s largest networks of Ethereum validators, according to the 2022 German Blockchain report published by CV VC Labs.
The report which offers a structural overview of the country’s blockchain ecosystem, also indicated Germany accounts for nearly 6% of Europe’s blockchain funding.
The European country has a 22.8% share of all Ethereum nodes, while the United States leads with 45.3%. Both countries operate more than half of the entire Ethereum ecosystem, which is concerning given the need for optimal decentralization.
According to the report, geographical decentralization means so much for a network’s overall decentralization. Furthermore, the risk of censoring or controlling transactions would be too high where only a few countries dominate validator nodes.
Ethereum’s mission is to become the world’s leading computer of smart contracts, which cannot happen if validation is in the hands of a few players.
Better yet, the numbers have been growing since last year. The percentage share of Ethereum validators in the U.S. was 36.92% in 2021, while Germany’s share stood at 21.16%.
Despite the network’s perpetual growth, the concentration of validators still appears to be higher in particular regions.
Germany accounts for 6% of Europe’s blockchain funding
In 2022 alone, Germany’s blockchain projects raised approximately $8 billion. The total number of projects receiving funding came to 220, while the number of unicorns in the European nation totaled 34.
The report indicates the country received 2.4% of the world’s venture funding and 6% of Europe’s blockchain funding. Interestingly, venture funding value on a quarter-over-quarter basis fell by 50%, whereas deal count soared by 10%.
Equally important, the biggest share of funding went to early-stage blockchain enterprises, which made up 72% of all funding deals.
Most of 2022’s blockchain funding went to innovations in Infrastructure and Development, to which VCs allocated over 55% of all funding. According to the pie chart below, DeFi came second with a percentage funding of 27%, followed by NFTs at 6%.
