ARK Invest and Glassnode: Three Staking Entities Can Cross Ethereum (ETH) 33% Stake Threshold

Three Staking Entities Cross the 33% Line

A joint research study from ARK Invest and Glassnode has put a hard number on how concentrated the validator landscape of Ethereum (ETH) really is: the network's critical control threshold — set at 33% of all staked ETH under its proof-of-stake consensus design — can be crossed through the coordinated action of just three large staking organizations. That is the study's core finding for the Ethereum ecosystem, and it lands at a sensitive moment for a market still debating whether the largest smart-contract platform remains credibly decentralized.

The mechanics matter. Under proof of stake, an attacker needs no mining hardware; one third of the stake is the level researchers treat as sufficient to disrupt finality, which is why the study measures how few actors must coordinate to reach it. The organizations in question run staking services that aggregate ETH from large numbers of individual users and operate validation infrastructure on their behalf — so the concentration reflects delegators' choices, not direct corporate ownership of the tokens. The authors are explicit on this point: a big share of staked assets held by one operator does not mean that operator owns the underlying ETH.

For contrast, the same dataset examines Bitcoin, where three mining pools — Foundry USA at 27.27%, AntPool at 17.06% and F2Pool at 16.96% of measured hash power — together clear the network's 51% threshold. Solana sits at the opposite extreme: researchers counted 19 independent entities as the minimum required to reach its equivalent critical level, a trade-off the study links to Solana's performance and faster coordination. The framing stops short of alarm, but the three-entity figure for ETH hands critics of staking concentration a concrete number to cite.

Arthur Hayes Rotates Into ETH

While researchers map the network's power structure, one of crypto's most prominent traders is putting fresh capital behind the asset. Arthur Hayes, co-founder of BitMEX and chief investment officer of the Maelstrom fund, said in remarks published Tuesday, September 2, that Ethereum is his top allocation right now — even as he maintains Bitcoin (BTC) is headed for $1 million by 2030. ETH, changing hands near $2,401.70 when the comments were published, is among the few large-cap altcoin assets yet to reclaim its 2021 all-time high, and Hayes argued the market has largely written it off — precisely why he expects a 3x to 5x move from current levels.

His macro case mirrors the one he applies to Bitcoin: a potential unwind of the AI trade, sustained global money printing and the risk of US yield-curve control. He pegged the recent Bitcoin bottom near $58,000 and described the current grind higher as a rally the market hates — with BTC around $77,090 at publication. What Hayes has dropped is telling: Hyperliquid (HYPE), whose upside asymmetry he says has shrunk as expectations got priced in, making underpriced ETH the better use of Maelstrom's capital. He is also dismissive of political noise, arguing that Donald Trump's crypto commentary has “almost no impact” and that the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury, not election rhetoric, will set the trajectory.

The interview carries one operational footnote: BitMEX, the exchange Hayes founded in 2014 and the pioneer of leveraged contract trading in crypto, will shut down on September 23, 2026. He framed the closure as a voluntary wind-down driven by economics — without the scale of Binance or OKX, mounting security and operations costs no longer pay for themselves. Not everyone buys the bullish math: Markus Thielen, head of research at 10x Research, called the $1 million Bitcoin forecast nearly impossible, since reaching it would require trillions of dollars of fresh inflows over four years. Readers tracking the market in real time can follow live spot and futures prices on Bitget.

Concentration Data Meets the Rotation Trade

Taken together, the two threads frame the same asset from opposite directions. The ARK Invest–Glassnode dataset — the primary record behind this analysis — documents genuine structural concentration: three staking organizations can collectively reach Ethereum's 33% threshold, just as three pools clear 51% on Bitcoin. Hayes's rotation bet, meanwhile, assumes the market has over-discounted both that structure and ETH's price history. In our reading, the two are not contradictory: spot Ethereum ETF flows extended a 12-day inflow streak, showing allocators still treat ETH as institutional-grade, while ETH slipping below the $2,400 range floor keeps the entry Hayes likes well in play. The variable to watch is staked-ETH distribution: if it stays pinned to three-entity dependence, the decentralization discount may persist; if it disperses, that discount closes on its own.