Despite the updates that are linked, Ethereum still faces scalability problems. Faced with the complexification of the network and the increase in the Gas limit, it is increasingly difficult to operate a node. A component at the heart of decentralization, because it allows anyone to check its transactions without relying on a third -party service. Faced with the increase in material prerequisites to operate a node, Vitalik Buterin is betting on a new type of node «partially Stateless».
The key points of this article:
Ethereum continued to meet scalability challenges despite successive updates.
Vitalik Buterin proposed “partially Stateless” nodes to lighten the material prerequisites and support decentralization.
Local nodes in the face of the increase in the Gas limit
Last February, the Gas limit was increased by 20 %. This means that the blocks can spend 20 % Gas in addition. And therefore, contain more transactions. A boon for the scalability of the network, but which does not come without counterparties. Indeed, that also increases the material prerequisites to operate a knot. Which, ultimately, negatively impacts decentralization. A situation that is all the more important that Some developers want to increase the Gas limit exponentially. It was to solve this problem that Vitalik Buterin presented a solution on May 19 via the Et Research forum. One of the main ideas of this proposal is to limit the amount of historicals that each node must keep. For this, several methods are discussed. To answer this question, Buterin envisages several solutions according to their imminence.
Short -term solutions
In the short term, Buterin offers Prioritize EIP-4444which allows the nodes of not keep only the last thirty days of transactions. This would considerably reduce the necessary disk space. In parallel, he proposes to create a distributed historical storage solution. The older history would thus be stored in a shared manner between all the nodes of the network. Thus, each participant contributes to the conservation of the data, without having to store everything himself. Finally, Buterin plans to make the storage of new data on the more expensive blockchain. The objective is to limit the growth of the overall state and to preserve the lightness of the nodes.
Medium -term solutions
Over a longer time, Vitalik Buterin wishes to turn to the «stateless verification». And subject discussed many times by the founder of Ethereum. To do this, Vitalik Buterin imagines a new category of nodes, called «partially stateless nodes». These nodes would only keep part of the blockchain state, chosen by the user according to their needs. For example, a user could decide to keep only information about their own accounts, certain tokens or specific applications. Thus, it would be possible to continue to check the transactions and interact with the blockchain independently, while reducing the storage and calculation load. In practice, this solution has many advantages. It would make it possible to manage a node much more accessible, even for users with few IT resources. It improves confidentiality by opening the door to anyone to operate a knot. Finally, it would participate in maintaining the decentralization of the network, preventing only large players from being able to operate complete nodes. For its part, the network Ethereum has just deployed a major update with the Hard Fork Pectra. From now on, the developers look at the next important step: Fusaka.