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3.0
Rocket Pool Protocol
As discussed in Lesson 1, Ethereum's health and operation depends on its network of validators that propose blocks and attest to their transactions. More nodes (and by extension, validators) in different hands promote the blockchain's well-being by making it resistant to attacks.
If a set of validators can gain enough control, they can manipulate transactions, force chain forks, etc. Ethereum Foundation researcher Danny Ryan has a widely circulated writing that addresses concerns when one agent gains too much control of Ethereum validation. The Attack and Defense section of the Ethereum.org developer docs also address this in detail (in particular later subsections Attackers using >= 33% of the total stake, Attackers using ~50% of the total stake, and Attackers using >=66% of the total stake).
An obvious dilemma to attracting as many people as possible is that PoS requires 32 ETH per validator. Not many individuals have that amount of money to put up as collateral. If only a few willing holders and organizations have the funds for validators, they create a centralization attack vector. Furthermore, running a validator as a solo-staker takes a decent amount of technical know-how.
Rocket Pool is the answer to the question: How do you activate enough independent validators to properly decentralize while acknowledging the cost and technical expertise required to stake?