Ethereum overhaul risks creating a new class of crypto kingpins

While there are already more than 416,000 validators lined up to order transactions, there are only a handful of participants committed to serving as builders

The much-anticipated upgrade of Ethereum will create new participants called builders in the blockchain ecosystem, a move that risks altering the power structure of what is arguably the most commercially important cryptocurrency network.

Under the current system, networks of computers known as miners pluck transactions out of a special data pool, and arrange them into blocks that are added to the blockchain. The miners are being eliminated as part of a plan to reduce energy consumption. After the planned September upgrade known as the Merge, the builders will gather transactions into blocks, which they will then send to the validators. The