Vitalik wants to burn the staked Ethereum of sanction complying validators

In a recent Twitter poll on Ethereum censorship, Vitalik Buterin revealed that he voted to punish validators complying with censorship requests by burning their staked tokens.

Ethereum co-founder champions censorship-resistant approach

The poll was held by software engineer Eric Wall, who asked the Ethereum community if they would burn the staked tokens of validators who comply with censorship requests or “tolerate the censorship” and do nothing.

The majority of voters  — 62%, including Buterin — opted for the former. Meanwhile, 9% voted to tolerate censorship, and 29% clicked show results. As of press time, several hours remain until the poll closes.

Wall’s poll was a response to a tweet from Lefteris Karapetsas, the founder of Rotkiap, a privacy-focused portfolio tracker, who asked five significant Proof-of-Stake validators if they would comply with censorship requests or respond to the request by closing their staking service.

Question for @LidoFinance, @coinbase, @krakenfx, @stakedus, @BitcoinSuisseAG

If regulators ask you to censor at the #ethereum protocol level with your validators will you:

A) Comply and censor at protocol level
B) Shut down the staking service and preserve network integrity https://t.co/UYVR2L6tB1

— Lefteris Karapetsas | Hiring for @rotkiapp (@LefterisJP) August 14, 2022

Karapetsas’s post was inspired by @TheEylon, who revealed that the five validators called out by Karapetsas, which represent a combined stake of 66% of the Beacon Chain, would likely action censorship requests from authorities.

Start with the big, current one.

Currently it looks like over 66% of the beacon chain validators will adhere to OFAC regulations, @LidoFinance @coinbase @krakenfx @stakedus @BitcoinSuisseAG pic.twitter.com/qyq23tPnqV

— eylonverse X 🏴 (@TheEylon) August 14, 2022

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