Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has shared a detailed proposal to address the Ether’s Layer-1 scaling problems while keeping the feature of enabling users to run personal nodes.
Importance of Nodes in the Ethereum Ecosystem
Vitalik Buterin notes that the use of single nodes remains relevant despite new cryptographic technologies. In his previous roadmap, solutions such as Trusted Execution Environments, Oblivious RAM, and Private Information Retrieval were mentioned. Buterin highlights three reasons for the importance of single nodes:
1. Trustless cryptographic solutions like single-server PIR have high overhead costs. 2. Concerns about metadata privacy when using external RPC providers. 3. Censorship from centralized RPC points, which could lead to user exclusion.
Scaling Priorities for Ethereum
For short-term improvements, Buterin suggests several measures, including:
1. Prioritizing the execution of EIP-4444 to limit blockchain data storage to 36 days. 2. Building a distributed history storage solution using erasure coding for enhanced robustness. 3. Adjusting gas pricing to make storage costlier and execution cheaper.
Concept of Partially Stateless Nodes
The central element of Vitalik Buterin's proposal is the introduction of partially stateless nodes. These nodes are designed to allow users to operate personal nodes even if Ethereum's gas limit increases by 10-100 times. They will verify blocks statelessly and validate the entire chain while retaining only a user-selected portion of the state, ensuring access to necessary data while maintaining privacy.
Vitalik Buterin's proposed solutions aim to balance the demands for scaling and user accessibility, which is crucial for the continued success of Ethereum.
