More than 15% of Ethereum Nodes Blocked from Mining and Staking

Hetzner, a leading German cloud hosting provider supporting nearly 16% of Ethereum nodes, has announced that it will no longer allow its resources to be used for cryptocurrency mining or staking.

Following the recent backlash against major crypto entities for blocking wallets interacting with Tornado Cash due to U.S. sanctions, the Ethereum community is facing yet another setback. This time, the issue comes from infrastructure service providers.

Hetzner, a cloud computing company based in Germany, has stirred up the Ethereum community by stating that its products cannot be used for cryptocurrency-related activities, including mining, staking, or trading, in a Reddit post.

Hetzner acknowledges that “a significant number of Ethereum users are utilizing Hetzner's products” and that they are “currently discussing internally to resolve the issue in the best possible way.” Hetzner's Terms of Service also state that they reserve the right to block user access if users do not adhere to their established rules.

According to Ethernode, over 15% of Ethereum nodes rely on Hetzner's servers. This situation highlights a major vulnerability not just for Ethereum, but for other blockchain platforms as well. If these infrastructure providers face technical issues or, worse, issue indefinite bans on cryptocurrency activities like Hetzner has, decentralized applications could be severely impacted, posing significant risks to this already fragile market.