Ethereum (ETH) founder Vitalik Buterin has shared his views on the ongoing debate about how to reduce the blockchain’s bloated data storage. Buterin’s view came as a response to support for a thread on X supporting state expiry.
Vitalik Buterin rejects expiry, proposes partial node solution
For context, "Ethereum's state" refers to all the data needed to keep track of account balances, token ownership, smart contract storage and the rest. Over the years, the state has grown with the creation of more accounts and contracts.
The amount of resources required to maintain the state continues to soar, and it is causing serious challenges for the network’s stability. It will also impact the scaling of the network as data storage continues to grow.
According to a state expiry advocate, approximately 80% of these data are stale but still take up space. Hence, state expiry supporters propose that the old and unused part of the state should be removed after a period of time. This, they believe, would help Ethereum scale.
Don't do state expiry, do partial state nodes imo
They're functionally similar, but the latter does not require any consensus-layer logic and is much more flexible.
However, Buterin has kicked against this proposal. He suggests that instead of enforcing expiry at the consensus level, the system should allow nodes to choose to store only part of the state.
The Ethereum founder noted that state expiry will affect the whole network, but "partial nodes" do not. Yet, the network maintains the full state, which is more flexible and does not require Ethereum to change its core rules.
Ethereum’s long-term roadmap aligns with Buterin’s view
Vitalik Buterin has also recently shared his long-term vision for the blockchain, with emphasis on simplifying the ecosystem. He stressed that building a secure, future-proof network is key, while keeping it fast and responsive.
Buterin believes this can be achieved with quantum computing to ensure the speed of transactions is improved. This indicates that the founder's "partial node" solution took into consideration the overall long-term vision for Ethereum.
This outlook is important for Ethereum, as competition with other layer-1 scaling solutions like Solana and BNB Chain is growing at a very fast pace. The implication of the scalable mainnet stack is such that it can support the RWA tokenization move and other demands from Wall Street investors.
Proponents like Tom Lee see strength in Ethereum’s design, which has helped it maintain 100% uptime since its launch. This strength, he believes, can help push the price of Ethereum to a new all-time high (ATH) above $10,000.
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