Bitcoin vs Ethereum

Which is more decentralized — Bitcoin or Ethereum? A side-by-side on consensus, nodes, clients and governance.

	Bitcoin	Ethereum
Grade	B+	B
Type	L1 · PoW	L1 · PoS
Nakamoto coefficient	~2–3*	~3*
Node / validator set	~20,000+ reachable full nodes	~1M validators · many node operators
Clients / sequencer	Bitcoin Core dominant; alternatives exist	Exec: Geth ~41%, Nethermind ~38%, Besu ~16% (improving)
Governance	No formal governance (BIP + social consensus)	Off-chain rough consensus
Key risk	Mining-pool concentration	Lido staking share; Geth client lead

Bitcoin B+

Largest reachable full-node set
No foundation / no on-chain governance to capture
Maximally credibly neutral

Mining hashpower concentrated in a few pools
Bitcoin Core client dominance

Ethereum B

~1M validators across many operators
Improving client diversity (no client > 2/3)
Largest decentralized app ecosystem

Staking-pool concentration (Lido share)
Geth still the leading execution client

Bottom line

Unmatched on node-level and political decentralization; mining-pool concentration is the asterisk. Strong on breadth; the work left is reducing staking-pool and client concentration.