The percentage of Ethereum blocks complying with orders set by the United States Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) has now fallen to 47% \u2014 the lowest level since Oct. 11.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The latest milestone in reversing censorship comes nearly three months after the percentage of OFAC-compliant blocks peaked at 79% on Nov. 21. <\/p>\n
OFAC-compliant blocks are those that exclude transactions involving parties sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control.<\/p>\n
A fall in compliant blocks could be seen as a win for those who\u00a0oppose censorship within the Ethereum ecosystem<\/a>.<\/p>\n Blockchain consulting firm Labrys, the creator of MEV Watch, said in a statement thathe fall may be attributed to more validators opting to use MEV-boost relays that do not censor transactions in accordance with OFAC requirements.<\/p>\n \u201cIn particular, the BloXroute Max Profit relay, Ultrasound Money relay and Agnostic Boost relay have picked up most of the change in market share.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n MEV-boost relays act as trusted mediators between block producers and block builders, which enables Ethereum validators to outsource their block production to other block builders.<\/p>\n Lachlan Feeney, the CEO of Labrys, said in a Feb. 14 statement that he\u2019s happy with how the Ethereum community has responded to the censorship issue since it first surfaced post-Merge.<\/p>\n He noted the recent fall in censorship-compliant blocks was particularly notable given it was achieved without a user-activated soft fork (UASF)<\/a>. He noted that\u00a0\u201cmany members\u201d of the Ethereum community had called for the soft fork prior to the Merge to combat censorship. <\/p>\n \u201cI am incredibly proud of the Ethereum community for the progress we have made with this issue,\u201d said Feeney, adding: <\/p>\n \u201cWhen we released the MevWatch tool drawing attention to a flaw within Ethereum, the community did not stick its head in the sand but instead rose to the occasion and made significant progress addressing the issue.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, \u201cthere is still more work to be done,\u201d Feeney stressed.<\/p>\n Related: <\/em><\/strong>Ethereum at the center of centralization debate as SEC lays claim <\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n OFAC most notably sanctioned<\/a>\u00a0Ether (ETH)<\/a> and USD Coin (USDC)<\/a> wallet addresses that transact using the Ethereum-based privacy mixing tool Tornado Cash on Aug. 8.<\/p>\n After the first 24 hours of Ethereum under its new proof-of-stake consensus mechanism on Sept. 16, only 9% of blocks were OFAC-censored.\u00a0<\/p>\n However this figure sharply increased over the next two months, peaking at 79% on Nov. 21.<\/p>\n The percentage of OFAC-compliant blocks then hovered around the 68-75% range until Jan. 29 when it was 66%. Since then, it has steadily decreased despite a few minor spikes.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/s3.cointelegraph.com\/uploads\/2023-02\/cde20b48-2e54-447d-8a28-56c34935c3dd.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
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