Ethereum (ETH) Co-founder Vitalik Buterin Outlines the Need to Maintain Network Decentralization While Scaling

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has highlighted the need to maintain the network's decentralization properties while attempting to improve its speed.

In a recently published report, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin highlighted the need to maintain the network’s decentralization properties while attempting to improve its speed.

Highlighting the fact that attempts to scale Ethereum using L1 protocols should not tamper with some critical aspects of the network, Buterin stated that maintaining a decentralized node operation is non-negotiable.

Some of the node operators on the Ethereum blockchain are connecting to external RPCs and must be confident that they are connecting to the correct chain and that their data is private and protected, according to Buterin.

In the meantime, the blockchain expert touched upon the emerging scaling protocols and the risks they pose. Among them, he noted the high cost of attempting to deploy fully trustless cryptographic solutions, which would threaten metadata privacy and create an opportunity for censorship.

Buterin stated that it would be best to keep systems that support the ease of running personal nodes, explaining some of the benefits such a system offers the network.

According to Buterin, running personal nodes reduces the disk space requirements significantly, solving a crucial network problem. It also enables a distributed history storage system and adjusts gas pricing to make transaction execution less expensive.

The blockchain expert explained that enabling stateless verification is a medium-term priority in his preferred scaling approach.

Such a solution would enable an RPC-capable node without storing state Merkle branches, which is another method of reducing the network’s storage requirement and allowing it to scale.

Buterin considers implementing stateless nodes a new idea, allowing personal node operations even when the L1 gas limit grows by 10-100x.