Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has submitted a new proposal to make blockchain network nodes more efficient and accessible.
In a May 19th research blog post, Buterin argued that the long-term health of a network depends on the ability of users to run individual nodes.
According to Buterin, Ethereum nodes act as a critical infrastructure for the blockchain. It helps to store transaction data, validate activity and maintain decentralization.
However, running a full node means that many users will rely on centralized remote procedure call (RPC) services as the network grows.
“The overhead is unrealistic and can remain expensive even after many improvements in efficiency.”
Buterin pointed out that this shift threatens the core principles of privacy, censorship resistance and Ethereum’s decentralization.
For this reason, he emphasized the need to maintain his ability to manipulate individual nodes while addressing Ethereum’s growth challenges.
He said:
“It’s worth it to use a full node and have a local RPC server that can be used to read the chain in an unreliable, censored and privacy-friendly way.”
Buterin proposed a solution for Ethereum nodes
To facilitate node operations, Buterin proposed prioritization of Ethereum Improvement Proposal 4444 (EIP-4444). This limits the amount of historical data a node must store to 36 days.
Meanwhile, he recommends a distributed storage solution for fragmenting and spreading history across the network using erasure coding, making older blockchain data available.
According to him:
“This ensures the ‘blockchain forever’ property without putting a heavy burden on centralized providers and node operators. ”
Buterin also proposed to revisit Ethereum’s gas pricing model. He believes that increasing gas costs for creating states, such as new storage slots, contract deployments, and sending ETH to inactive accounts will discourage excessive data storage.
At the same time, reducing the execution costs can reduce the burden on the network.
Partially stateless node
On the other hand, an important highlight of Buterin’s proposal is the introduction of “partially stateless nodes.”
He says that these nodes do not store the full Ethereum state, but only store a subset that is relevant to the user’s needs.
The co-founder of Ethereum added that these nodes still validate blocks and respond to data requests, but only for some of the states they manage. He wrote:
“The node can respond to RPC requests as long as the required data is within a subset of the state. Other requests will fail.”
Regarding other data, Buterin said node operators can use encryption tools or external services to maintain privacy and choice.