Ethereum client diversity is improving, with non-Gate clients now accounting for 34%.

Gate's market share – the main Ethereum execution client – fell from 84% to 66% at the end of January, following Coinbase's recent move to transfer half of its holdings to Nethermind, which one analyst says is the fight to achieve decentralization too far.

The reduced dependence on GATE will help solve Ethereum's long-feared risk of centralization, where a critical error in a client with 66% or more of its share can stop it from completing the chain. But one analyst cautions that the industry should not declare victory just yet.

In the year On March 22, Coinbase Cloud revealed that “roughly 50%” of its validators had switched to Nethermind, which helped bring the customer base up to 22% per customer.

Besu has a 10% share of Ethereum validators, while Erigon – which is also backed by Coinbase – has a 2% share, bringing the total minority customer share to around 34%.

Execution clients on Ethereum play an important role in processing transactions and executing smart contracts on the blockchain.

Gate is widely regarded as the most advanced client. However, the strong selection among Ethereum validators in the last few years has led to a balance of performance among clients.

The fight is not over yet.

“We can't declare victory yet,” Labris, co-founder and CEO of the Ethereum infrastructure firm, told Cointelegraph.

Finney says the method used to derive the customer diversity figures is flawed, saying that Gate should move “assuming a margin of error below 66% before being confident that a dominant error is not possible.”

“The real win” won't be known until no single customer controls more than a 33% stake, Feeney added.

The death sentence emphasized the importance of a monopoly stake in diversifying customers, preventing those stakeholders from making major mistakes at Gate.

Related: Vitalik Buterin to Fix Ethereum Centralization: Simplify Running Nodes

Ethereum's decentralized proponent “Superphys” recently said that a critical error in GATE could wipe out 80% or more of the Ether (ETH) on the network.

There are currently 31.5 million Ether shares, according to Beconcha.in, which is worth $113.5 billion at the current price.

Meanwhile, Coinbase says it will continue to play its part in decentralizing Ethereum by expanding its own set of validators.

“Ensuring the security of our clients' assets and contributing to the resiliency of the Ethereum network are – and always will be – very important to us. Enlarging our execution clients on our validators helps us achieve both.”

Coinbase says it intends to distribute its verifiers “proportionally” in the long term between Gate, Nethermind and Erigon.

Finney Sigma Prime, Killeen, Octant, Lido, Anchor and Twinstack also reported reduced reliance on Gate.

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