In post published on October 23, Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin shared details about an update to The Verge that aims to make it easier to launch validation nodes.

New Ethereum update making it easier to run nodes

Buterin highlighted several issues currently facing the Ethereum network, in particular the high resource requirements needed to run Ethereum nodes.

According to tests from Paradigm, an Ethereum client must store “hundreds of gigabytes of stateful data” to verify transaction blocks. Moreover, this data demand increases by almost 30 GB every year, leading to fewer entities being able to run validator nodes.

With The Verge’s update, running nodes can become more accessible and less resource-intensive by leveraging two key innovations – stateless clients and SNARK (Succinct Non-interactive Arguments of Knowledge) cryptographic clients.

Uninitiated, stateless clients act as full validating nodes without the intensive hardware requirements associated with typical Ethereum blockchain clients.

In particular, stateless clients only need a few gigabytes of memory, as opposed to the current need for over 1 terabyte (TB), which makes running a full node resource-intensive.

Buterin posits that stateless verification “will make full chain verification so computationally affordable that every mobile wallet, browser wallet, and even smart watch does it by default.”

By reducing storage needs, stateless clients can democratize network participation, lowering barriers to entry – especially for individual players – and enabling more entities to secure and validate transactions on the Ethereum network.

Buterin encourages investing alone, lowering the requirements

Buterin recently he emphasized the importance of increasing the availability of solo staking on Ethereum by lowering barriers to entry, such as the minimum amount of ETH required for staking and reducing bandwidth requirements.

Additionally, Buterin discussed the benefits of SNARK in 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 having to download all of their data. “Download some data, verify the SNARK, and you’re done,” Buterin concludes.

In a detailed blog post, Buterin also shed airy on Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4762, which addresses stateless gas cost changes 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, calculations and state access features.

Ethereum’s native token, ETH, is seeing increasing institutional interest as the shrewd contract platform grows in popularity. A recent study found that almost 70% of institutional investors do just that involved in ETH staking.

Despite the generally bullish outlook for Ethereum’s future, such optimism is not there yet translated to a significant movement in ETH prices. 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