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In a job published on October 23, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), shared details about “The Verge” upgrade, which aims to make it easier to run validator nodes.
New Ethereum Upgrade to Make Nodes Easier to Run
Buterin highlighted several issues currently facing the Ethereum network, particularly the high resource requirements needed to run Ethereum nodes.
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According to research According to Paradigm, an Ethereum client must store “hundreds of gigabytes of state data” to verify transaction blocks. Additionally, these data requirements are growing by almost 30 GB each year, reducing the number of entities capable of running validator nodes.
With “The Verge” upgrade, running nodes can be made more accessible and less resource-intensive by leveraging two key innovations: stateless clients and cryptographic SNARKs (Succinct Non-interactive Arguments of Knowledge).
Uninitiated, stateless clients function as full verification nodes without the intensive hardware requirements associated with typical Ethereum blockchain clients.
Specifically, stateless clients only need a few gigabytes of storage, as opposed to the current requirement of more than 1 terabyte (TB), making running a full node significantly resource-intensive.
Buterin says stateless verification will “make full-chain verification so computationally affordable that every mobile wallet, browser wallet, and even smartwatch does it by default.”
By reducing storage requirements, stateless clients can democratize participation in the network, lowering barriers to entry – particularly for solo investors – and allowing more entities to secure and validate transactions on the Ethereum network.
Buterin encourages solo staking by lowering requirements
Buterin recently underlines the importance of making solo Ethereum staking more accessible by lowering barriers to entry, such as the minimum amount of ETH required for staking and reducing bandwidth demands.
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Additionally, Buterin discussed the benefits of SNARKs for strengthening cryptographic verification and defending against the potential threat of quantum computing.
SNARKs are sophisticated cryptographic proofs that allow users to verify blockchain data without downloading all of their data. “Download some data, check a SNARK, done,” summarizes Buterin.
In the detailed blog post, Buterin also highlighted Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4762, which addresses changes to the cost of stateless gas in the context of stateless verification.
EIP-4762 aims to adjust gas fees for resource-intensive crypto operations to maintain the scalability and security of the Ethereum network. The proposal also introduces “multi-dimensional gas”, which charges different gas fees for call data, calculation and state access functions.
Ethereum’s native token, ETH, has attracted growing institutional interest as adoption of the smart contract platform grows. A recent survey shows that almost 70% of institutional investors are implied in ETH staking.
Despite the overall optimistic outlook for the future of Ethereum, this optimism has not yet been achieved. translated in a significant price movement for ETH. Nevertheless, long-term ETH holders remain confident in the long-term potential of the token. At the time of writing, ETH is trading at $2,526, up 1.7% in the last 24 hours.
Featured image from Unsplash, chart from Tradingview.com
