Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has introduced a significant proposal to enhance the network's staking protocol by integrating native Distributed Validator Technology (DVT). The concept, detailed in a post on the Ethereum Research forum, aims to fundamentally improve validator security and promote greater decentralization within the Ethereum ecosystem.
The core of the proposal involves allowing a single validator identity to be backed by multiple independent keys—up to a maximum of 16. For critical actions like block proposals and attestations, a threshold number of these keys must sign off for the action to be valid. This design ensures that a validator remains operational even if some of its constituent keys fail or are compromised, as long as more than two-thirds of the nodes remain honest. The system would maintain existing slashing mechanisms to penalize malicious behavior.
Buterin emphasized that current DVT implementations, such as the one adopted by exchange Kraken via the SSV Network in 2025, are operationally complex and rely on external coordination layers. His "native DVT" approach would integrate this technology directly into the Ethereum protocol itself, simplifying setup and reducing potential points of failure. The proposed design is engineered to add only minimal latency—specifically, one extra round for block production—without significantly impacting network performance or confirmation processes.
A primary goal of this upgrade is to reduce reliance on large, centralized staking providers like major exchanges. By making staking more fault-tolerant and technically accessible, Buterin believes the proposal could empower more individual users and smaller institutions to run their own validators. This shift is expected to improve key decentralization metrics, such as the Nakamoto coefficient, which measures how many validators must be compromised to threaten the network.
The proposal arrives as the amount of staked ETH has reached approximately 30% of the total supply, underscoring the growing importance of a robust and decentralized staking infrastructure. However, this initiative is still in its early conceptual stage and must undergo extensive community review, technical evaluation, and a consensus process before any potential implementation, which is not expected before 2026.
