The Ethereum Redesign Could Give Rise to a New Order of Crypto-Blockchain Kings.

The long-awaited upgrade to Ethereum will introduce new players known as builders to the blockchain ecosystem, potentially upsetting the existing balance of power in what is widely considered the most commercially significant cryptocurrency network.

Current protocol has networks of computers, known as miners, select transactions from a dedicated data pool and order them into blocks for inclusion in the blockchain.

As part of an effort to cut back on power usage, the miners are being purged.

When the Merge update rolls around in September, builders will start compiling transactions into blocks before sending them to validators.

The validators will approve the sequence of blocks that will comprise the new blockchain.

This seemingly arcane adjustment, which is actually a part of the MEV-Boost software upgrade, has the potential to initially make Ethereum more centralized.

In contrast to the over 416,000 validators waiting to issue orders for transactions, there are only a small number of participants who have committed to serving as builders.

One of the largest is Flashbots, which develops open-source software for use in trading robots.

The use of "flashbots" to allow traders to front-run or otherwise bypass other transactions in order to collect transaction fees from miners is already the norm.

As a result of people's worries about the potential for abuse of power by Flashbots and similar entities, some participants are thinking about switching roles to become builders.

"It kills decentralization," said BloXroute Labs CEO Uri Klarman, whose company operates a server network that facilitates the transmission of trader transactions to miners more quickly.

He estimated that 40 percent of all coin transactions executed through decentralized finance apps (which allow users to buy, sell, lend, and borrow cryptocurrency) were routed through the network.

Klarman warned that a cryptocurrency wallet with as much power as MetaMask, which allows users to buy, sell, and receive cryptocurrency, could become a "kingmaker."

With over 30 million users, MetaMask is the most widely adopted non-custodial wallet option.

According to Klarman, a wallet service could choose to favor one builder over another or even act as a builder itself, effectively controlling the flow of transactions.

ConsenSys, headquartered in New York City, was founded by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin and is the owner of MetaMask. A representative from the software company has dismissed the worry.

According to Taylor Monahan, global product lead at MetaMask, "we will never send all of MetaMask's transactions to one specific builder or provider."

"The value of MetaMask comes from being a portal to a dynamic, diverse, and equitable ecosystem.

It is for this reason that MetaMask will always prioritize making choices that advance a strong and decentralized Ethereum.

The original idea behind Ethereum's builder-validator role split was to decrease validators' influence and increase the network's decentralization.

However, concerns are raised when there are too few builders on the improved Ethereum chain.

This would allow them to restrict which transactions were included in blocks.

After the US Treasury Department banned the mixer protocol earlier this month, Flashbots blacklisted Tornado Cash wallets.