Ethereum vs Bitcoin

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

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

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

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

Bottom line

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