Vitalik Buterin Proposes Reducing Node State Size

Scaling Ethereum should enhance performance without compromising the usability of personal nodes, believes network co-founder Vitalik Buterin. In a new essay, he offered relevant recommendations.

These include the implementation of:

• EIP-4444;
• distributed history storage;
• stateless verification synchronization;
• light nodes with “partial state” (partially stateless nodes).

According to Buterin, the full deployment of EIP-4444 will reduce disk space requirements, which are the main obstacle preventing most from running nodes. Each will store data for the last 36 days, the state size, and Merkle tree states.

In the case of distributed history storage, the cryptographer suggested that each node store a small percentage of information older than a set period. To enhance reliability, he proposes using erasure codes.

This solution would ensure the “eternity of the blockchain,” eliminating dependence on centralized providers and additional load on node operators, Buterin explained.

In this context, it is also advisable to restructure gas pricing: increasing storage costs and reducing execution costs.

In the medium term, the Ethereum co-founder sees the need to transition to stateless verification synchronization. This would create conditions for running a node with RPC support without storing Merkle tree states, roughly halving data storage requirements.

A new concept could be the introduction of light nodes with “partial state.” This innovation would allow a personal node to function even as the gas limit of L1 grows 10-100 times.

Such a node could respond to RPC requests as long as the required data is within the state subset. Other requests would be rejected (or would need to revert to an external cryptographic solution).

Earlier, Buterin cautioned against rushing the decentralization of rollups.

In 2025, the cryptographer intends to focus on developing the network’s core infrastructure and promoting decentralized ecosystems.