Bitcoin Tops Decentralization Study by ARK and Glassnode, but No Network Wins Across the Board

A new joint study from ARK Invest and Glassnode finds that Bitcoin remains the most decentralized among the three largest blockchain networks, though the researchers caution that no single chain dominates every measure of decentralization.

The report, published September 1, compared Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana across dimensions including auditability, ownership distribution, security governance, node participation, and geographic concentration. Bitcoin scored highest in auditability, ownership distribution, and geographic resilience. Ethereum occupied the middle ground, while Solana leaned more toward performance and coordination speed.

The researchers stressed that the findings should be read as a comparative spectrum rather than a definitive ranking. Each network makes distinct trade-offs between decentralization, security, and performance, and those choices reflect fundamentally different design philosophies.

Mining pool concentration surprises

One of the more striking findings involves the Nakamoto coefficient, a metric that measures how many entities would need to collude to gain meaningful control over a network. For Bitcoin, just three mining pools control more than 51% of the network's hash rate. Ethereum showed a coefficient of three as well, based on a 33% staking threshold. Solana's coefficient was considerably higher at 19 entities.