Why Statelessness is an Antipattern for Interactive dApps

Starknet's architecture separates state updates (proven off-chain) from state availability (on-chain). This creates a ~10-30 second latency for finality, making it unsuitable for high-frequency DeFi or gaming. The sequencer holds temporary state, introducing a centralization vector.

• Key Problem: High latency breaks real-time user experience.
• Key Compromise: Reliance on a single sequencer for liveness.

Fuel Labs rejects pure statelessness for dApps, opting for a parallelized state access model (UTXO-inspired) within a monolithic execution layer. This preserves composability while enabling ~10k TPS for transactions that don't conflict. It's a pragmatic middle-ground.

• Key Benefit: Parallel execution unlocks massive throughput.
• Key Trade-off: Still requires full nodes to hold and compute state.

Solana treats state as a scarce, rent-paying resource, forcing dApps to be ruthlessly efficient. This creates a high-performance, stateful environment with ~400ms block times, but at the cost of developer complexity and high operational overhead for managing account sizes and rent.

• Key Benefit: Sub-second finality enables true interactivity.
• Key Compromise: State management is a core developer burden.

Ethereum's roadmap outsources execution and state management to Optimistic and ZK Rollups (Arbitrum, OP Mainnet, zkSync). These L2s maintain full, mutable state to deliver ~1-5 second latency, using Ethereum solely for security and data availability. This is the dominant working model.

• Key Benefit: Interactive performance with inherited L1 security.
• Key Compromise: Introduces bridging complexity and fragmented liquidity.

Modular chains using Celestia for data availability still require a full execution layer (like Rollkit) to compute and hold state. DA does not solve the state problem for interactive dApps—it only makes publishing that state cheaper. The execution layer's state model remains the bottleneck.

• Key Problem: Misconflation of data availability with state execution.
• Key Reality: Execution layer must still be stateful and performant.

Sovereign rollups (e.g., on Celestia) have full control over their state transition function but zero inherited security for execution. They must bootstrap their own validator set and consensus, making them functionally akin to a new, fragile L1. The statefulness problem is not abstracted—it's fully owned.

• Key Benefit: Maximum sovereignty and customization.
• Key Compromise: Security and liveness are a full-time protocol challenge.

Stateless clients must fetch Merkle proofs for every state access, adding ~100-500ms latency per user action. This kills the feel of real-time apps.

• Unacceptable for DEX Aggregators like 1inch where price execution is critical.
• Breaks Game Loops where on-chain state updates must feel instantaneous.
• Witness Bandwidth becomes a bottleneck, shifting load to centralized relayers.

The network must reliably propagate large witnesses (proofs) to validators. This creates a secondary P2P reliability problem on top of block propagation.

• Witness DOS becomes a new attack vector, threatening chain liveness.
• Incentive Misalignment: Who pays for witness storage/bandwidth?
• Client Diversity Suffers as resource requirements for full nodes skyrocket.

Developers must now manage proof verification within contract logic, increasing gas costs and audit surface. ZK-Rollups handle this via a centralized prover, but general-purpose statelessness pushes it to users.

• Gas Overhead: Verifying a Merkle proof can cost ~200k+ gas per transaction.
• Tooling Fracture: Requires new SDKs and frameworks, breaking composability.
• Stateful Primitives like Uniswap v3's tick system become prohibitively expensive to verify.

Practical systems blend stateful and stateless designs. zkSync's Volition and App-Specific Rollups (dYdX, Immutable) keep hot state on-chain and push cold data off-chain.

• Hot/Cold Data Separation: Interactive state stays local; archival data is stateless.
• Sovereign Execution: App-chains control their state model, optimizing for their use case.
• Ethereum as a Data Availability & Settlement Layer becomes the true scaling model.

Ethereum's Verkle Trie transition reduces witness size from ~1 MB to ~150 bytes, making stateless clients viable for sync, not for real-time dApp interaction.

• Solves Sync, Not UX: Full nodes can sync instantly, but interactive proofs remain.
• Enables Stateless Validation, not stateless execution for end-users.
• The Final Goal is a stateless validator set, with stateful execution environments (rollups) handling UX.

Statelessness fundamentally misunderstands the user role. Users want outcomes, not verification. Systems like UniswapX (intent-based) and Across (optimistic bridge) abstract state by having professionals (solvers, relayers) manage it.

• Intent-Centric Design: User submits a desired outcome; a filler handles state complexity.
• Professional State Managers: Dedicated actors (like LayerZero relayers) optimize for proof generation and delivery.
• User Experience is defined by the guarantee, not the cryptographic primitive.