France Energy Giant EDF Now Runs Over 150 Ethereum Nodes

EDF is now a major validator on Ethereum.

Électricité de France (EDF), a France-based electricity company, has delved deeper into crypto by becoming a heavyweight validator on Ethereum (ETH).

According to a recent report, EDF manages more than 150 Ethereum nodes under its subsidiary Exaion. Per the report, the subsidiary, created in 2020, is currently managing 10 ETH nodes itself and more than 140 Ethereum nodes on behalf of EDF clients. 

EDF is ranked as the fifth-biggest utility company in Europe, with a market capitalization of €46 billion ($45 billion).

EDF Activities in the Crypto Sector 

Exaion is EDF’s Web 3 subsidiary that was secretly launched in 2020 to focus exclusively on cryptocurrencies. Due to skepticism surrounding cryptocurrencies, the French state-owned energy supplier did not publicly disclose Exaion. However, Exaion has been working on several blockchain projects, including Polkadot.

Aside from the 150 Ethereum nodes managed by Exaion, the company also runs another 150 nodes across multiple blockchains such as Tezos, Avalanche, Cosmos, and Polkadot.

Running these nodes enables Exaion to validate transactions on the networks.

While Exaion was launched to focus on different crypto initiatives, the company has ignored running Bitcoin nodes because its PoW consensus algorithm consumes high energy.

As reported by The Crypto Basic, Ethereum became environmentally friendly, reducing worldwide electricity consumption by 0.2% as the merge was successfully launched on September 15th.