Ethereum moves one step closer to total censorship thanks to OFAC compliance

The daily minting of OFAC-compliant Ethereum blocks has increased to 73%, adding to growing community concerns about censorship.

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Considering that protocol-level censorship is a deterrent to the crypto ecosystem's goal of highly open and accessible finance, the community has been following Ethereum's growing compliance with standards set by the Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). In the past 24 hours, the Ethereum network was found to enforce OFAC compliance on over 73% of its blocks.

Ethereum sporting 73% compliant blocks 'OFAC. Source: mevwatch.info

In October 2022, Cointelegraph reported growing censorship concerns after 51% of Ethereum blocks were found to be OFAC compliant. However, data from mevWatch confirmed that the daily minting of OFAC-compliant blocks increased to 73% as of November 3.

Ethereum PFAC Compliance Trend. Source: mevwatch.info

Some MEV-Boost relays, which are regulated by OFAC, will censor certain transactions. Accordingly, to ensure the neutrality of Ethereum (ETH), the network must adopt an uncensored MEV-Boost relay.

Ethereum validators can reduce OFAC compliance by removing relays in their MEV-Boost configuration that censor transactions, such as BloXroute Max Profit, BloxRoute Ethical, Manifold, and Relayooor.

Compliance with OFAC allows the US government agency to enforce economic and trade sanctions. Previously, the agency sanctioned Tornado Cash and several Ethereum addresses.

To date, 45% of all Ethereum blocks are considered OFAC compliant.

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