The centralization of Bitcoin mining has been criticized following recent events within the network. The hash power of two large mining pools, Foundry USA and AntPool, exceeds more than 51% of Bitcoin’s total hash power. Foundry possesses about 33.63%, and AntPool has about 17.94%.
This distribution has led to speculation that there may be a 51% attack on the Bitcoin blockchain. Such an incident would allow a majority mining group to manipulate the transaction order of double-spend coins. Such attacks are both expensive and uncommon; however, the mere potential has drawn the concern of analysts and market participants.
These fears increased as the Foundry mined eight consecutive blocks, and this is an uncommon occurrence. Although the analysts think that it is unlikely that an attack will happen, the event highlights that the network is more centralized. The centralization of control can be seen as a lack of trust, especially after the 51% attack on (XMR) a few days ago.