ConsenSys says Ethereum's new pledge cap will not impede decentralization, paving the way for institutional participation

ConsenSys Chief Research Officer Mallesh Pai said the Ethereum Pectra upgrade "does not pose a threat to decentralization" and that the upgrade simply cleans up "a lot of the heavy lifting that the network is doing behind the scenes". He stressed that "rewards continue to be proportional to the amount of ETH staked", i.e. "large validators will not gain more advantage as a result". The upgrade raises the maximum staking limit for a single validator from 32 ETH to 2,048 ETH, raising concerns about decentralization. Pai noted that many technical validators "are not really independent" and that keys can be consolidated after the upgrade, "we have seen this happen", "ideally the number of validators will drop to about 30,000". P2P.org vice-president of institutional business said the new cap "makes institutional pledges easier to consolidate and less risky".