Why Storage Requirements Are Silently Centralizing Blockchain Networks

Decouples execution from historical state. Nodes only hold a small cryptographic witness (e.g., Verkle proof) for validation, not the full chain history.

• Key Benefit: Node requirements drop from ~20TB to ~500MB.
• Key Benefit: Enables lightweight clients and true decentralization.

Offloads the cost and burden of storing transaction data from execution layers to specialized chains like Celestia, EigenDA, or Avail.

• Key Benefit: Execution nodes download only block headers, reducing sync time from weeks to hours.
• Key Benefit: Enables high-throughput rollups without forcing L1 nodes to store their data.

Full nodes must choose between storing everything (centralizing), pruning old state (breaking some dApps), or relying on centralized archival services.

• Key Benefit: Forces explicit design trade-offs for protocol architects.
• Key Benefit: Drives innovation in decentralized archival networks like Filecoin and Arweave.

Projects like zkSync and Starknet use validity proofs to compress many transactions into a single proof. The L1 only needs to verify the proof, not re-execute.

• Key Benefit: L1 state growth is linear to proofs, not transaction count.
• Key Benefit: Enables trustless bridging and scaling without data bloat.

A protocol-level mandate for nodes to stop serving historical data beyond one year. Pushes historical data to a decentralized peer-to-peer network.

• Key Benefit: Cuts required storage for consensus nodes by ~80% annually.
• Key Benefit: Formalizes the separation between consensus and archival roles.

Next-gen VMs like FuelVM and Move enable parallel transaction processing, drastically increasing state compute efficiency per byte stored.

• Key Benefit: Higher throughput per unit of state growth, improving the bloat/utility ratio.
• Key Benefit: Reduces contention and state lock conflicts that inflate storage needs.

Full nodes require storing the entire chain history and state. For Ethereum, this is >1 TB and growing by ~100 GB/month. This creates an insurmountable hardware barrier, pushing node operation to centralized cloud providers like AWS. The network's security model collapses if only <10,000 entities can afford to run a node.

The endgame is to make validators stateless. They verify blocks using cryptographic proofs (Verkle trees, Witnesses) instead of holding full state. Complementary proposals like State Expiry automatically archive old, unused state. This reduces hardware requirements by >99%, preserving permissionless node operation.

While core protocols research long-term fixes, modular architectures offer immediate relief. Execution layers like Arbitrum, Optimism offload state to their parent chain (L1). Light client protocols (Helios, Succinct) and portals (Portal Network) allow trust-minimized access to chain data without full sync, crucial for wallets and dApps.

Modular designs shift the burden to Data Availability (DA). If DA is expensive or centralized (e.g., a single committee), decentralization fails. Solutions like EigenDA, Celestia, and Ethereum's Danksharding compete to provide scalable, cheap, and decentralized DA. The cost of DA now directly dictates chain security and scalability.

High state costs create centralization in other network roles. In rollups, running a sequencer or prover requires rapid access to massive state. This leads to the current reality where most L2 sequencers are single entities, and proving markets are dominated by a few large players (Espresso, RiscZero).

Builders must design dApps that are functional for light clients from day one. Protocol architects must select a DA layer based on its decentralization guarantees and cost trajectory, not just throughput. The chain that solves state bloat without sacrificing decentralization wins the next era.