Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of Ethereum, has presented a proposal aimed at improving the decentralization and fairness of Ethereum’s network’s staking process, representing a notable advancement in refining the protocol. 

Named the “anti-correlation incentive” program, this proposal aims to penalize what is perceived as common errors by validators, such as failing to complete an attestation — an essential process for the network’s security and efficiency.

Buterin’s proposal is founded on an insight within decentralized systems: errors made by one participant are likely to be mirrored across other nodes or validators controlled by the same entity. The anti-correlation incentive is designed to deter this uniformity in errors, promoting a more distributed and robust network structure. 

Buterin advocates for measures to prevent superficial decentralization on Ethereum. He warns that current penalties only address serious infractions also known as slashing, allowing validators to maintain control without real distribution or resources. Furthermore, this proposal aims to enforce penalties for routine errors, ensuring genuine decentralization by discouraging uniformity among validators. 

This proposal also targets large stakes running multiple validators from a single location or device to prevent widespread correlated failures in Ethereum. The program also aims to promote genuine diversification among large entities, mitigating simultaneous failures while still enabling them to leverage economies of scale. 

To ensure fairness, the proposal is focused on impacting primarily large validators to encourage decentralization without unfairly burdening smaller participants.  

Meanwhile, looking at the much-anticipated spot Ethereum ETF approval, it seems that there is fear building up among investors. The approval of the spot Ethereum ETFs has been on hold for quite some time and with the continuous silence from the SEC, May is the only hope for the investors as it is the timeline set by the official to declare their decision.  

The approval of the spot Ethereum ETFs is set to have a significant effect on ETH price as what happened to Bitcoin in the past few months.