Verkle Trees compress state. The current Merkle Patricia Trie (MPT) forces nodes to store massive witness data for state proofs, creating a scaling bottleneck for validators and RPC providers like Alchemy and Infura.
the-ethereum-roadmap-merge-surge-verge
Blog
Verkle Trees as Ethereum’s State Compression Layer
A cynical yet optimistic deep dive into Verkle Trees, the cryptographic data structure enabling stateless clients and unlocking the next phase of Ethereum scalability. We cut through the hype to explain the first-principles engineering.
introduction
THE STATE PROBLEM
Introduction
Verkle Trees are the deterministic upgrade to Ethereum's Merkle Patricia Trie, designed to solve state growth and enable stateless clients.
Statelessness is the goal. Verkle Trees enable stateless clients by shrinking witness sizes from ~1 MB to ~150 bytes, allowing nodes to verify blocks without storing the full state, a prerequisite for enshrined PBS and wider validator participation.
The upgrade is non-negotiable. Unlike the MPT, Verkle Trees use Vector Commitments for constant-sized proofs, a cryptographic shift that directly enables the Verge milestone on the Ethereum roadmap.
key-trends
ETHEREUM'S STATE COMPRESSION LAYER
Executive Summary: The Verkle Thesis
Verkle Trees are a fundamental cryptographic upgrade to Ethereum's state structure, enabling stateless clients and solving the state growth problem.
01
The Problem: State Bloat Cripples Decentralization
Ethereum's current Merkle Patricia Trie forces nodes to store the entire state (~1TB+), creating prohibitive hardware requirements. This centralizes validation to a few large operators.
- State size grows ~50 GB/year, pricing out home validators.
- Witness sizes for block verification are massive (~1 MB), slowing sync.
- The network's security model relies on ~1M+ validators, not ~1,000.
~1TB+
State Size
~1 MB
Witness Size
02
The Solution: Vector Commitment Trees
Verkle Trees replace hashes with KZG polynomial commitments, allowing for extremely compact proofs. A single proof can verify millions of key-value pairs.
- Witness size reduction from ~1 MB to ~150 bytes.
- Enables stateless clients: validators only need a tiny proof, not the full state.
- Parallelizable proof generation unlocks future scalability for L2s like Arbitrum and Optimism.
~150 B
New Witness
99.9%
Size Reduction
03
The Catalyst: Enabling The Stateless Future
Verkle Trees are the prerequisite for Verkle-Powered Stateless Clients. This shifts the state burden from the network to the users and clients, restoring Ethereum's original peer-to-peer vision.
- Light clients become first-class citizens with full security guarantees.
- Danksharding's data sampling relies on this architecture for 16 MB blobs.
- Paves the way for true single-slot finality (SSF) by reducing consensus latency.
16 MB
Danksharding Blob
Single-Slot
Finality Target
04
The Trade-off: Complexity & Cryptographic Assumptions
The upgrade introduces new cryptographic complexity and assumptions, moving away from battle-tested SHA3 hashes.
- Relies on KZG trusted setups and elliptic curve pairings.
- Client implementation complexity increases significantly vs. simple Merkle trees.
- No quantum resistance, unlike hash-based constructions, but this is a long-term concern.
KZG
New Crypto
Trusted Setup
New Assumption
05
The Competitor: Binary Merkle Trees (Celestia, Avail)
Alternative data availability layers use simple binary Merkle trees for state commitments, prioritizing implementation simplicity and quantum resistance.
- Celestia's fraud proofs use binary trees for straightforward verification.
- Avail's validity proofs (ZK) also opt for hash-based constructions.
- Highlights Ethereum's choice: cryptographic elegance and extreme efficiency over simplicity.
Binary
Merkle Tree
Quantum Safe
Trade-off
06
The Timeline: Pectra & The Verkle Transition
Verkle Trees are slated for the Pectra upgrade, following Dencun. The transition is a hard fork requiring a one-time state conversion, a massive engineering undertaking.
- EIP-6800 formalizes the Verkle Tree transition.
- Dual-tree transition period where both old and new state trees exist.
- Client teams (Geth, Nethermind, Besu) must coordinate the most complex upgrade since The Merge.
Pectra
Target Epoch
EIP-6800
Core EIP
market-context
THE DATA
The State Problem: Ethereum's Scaling Bottleneck
Ethereum's state size is the primary constraint on scaling, and Verkle Trees are the cryptographic solution to compress it.
Ethereum's state is unsustainable. The full node requirement to store every account and contract's data creates a centralizing force, limiting validator participation and increasing sync times.
Verkle Trees replace Merkle Patricia Tries. They use Vector Commitments to shrink proof sizes from ~1 KB to ~150 bytes, enabling stateless clients and removing the primary barrier to scaling.
Statelessness unlocks scaling. Light clients verify blocks without storing state, reducing hardware demands. This is the prerequisite for Vitalik's Endgame scaling roadmap, enabling higher throughput rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism.
Evidence: Current Ethereum state is ~1 TB and grows by ~50 GB/month. Verkle proofs are 90% smaller, making state access feasible for mobile devices and consumer hardware.
deep-dive
THE STATE COMPRESSION LAYER
Verkle Trees: A First-Principles Breakdown
Verkle trees replace Ethereum's Merkle Patricia Trie to compress state size and enable stateless clients.
Verkle trees compress state by using vector commitments instead of Merkle proofs. This reduces witness sizes from ~300 KB to ~150 bytes, enabling stateless clients that do not store the full state.
Statelessness unlocks scaling by decoupling execution from state storage. Validators verify proofs, not data, which is the prerequisite for single-slot finality and scaling beyond current EIP-4844 blob throughput.
The core trade-off is computational intensity for bandwidth savings. Verkle proofs require more complex cryptography (KZG commitments, Pedersen hashes) than simple Merkle hashes, shifting bottlenecks from network to CPU.
Ethereum's roadmap integration positions Verkle trees as the foundation for the Verge. This upgrade directly enables the stateless client paradigm, a dependency for peer-to-peer networking and light client viability.
ETHEREUM STATE MANAGEMENT
Merkle Patricia Trie vs. Verkle Tree: A Technical Smackdown
A direct comparison of Ethereum's current and future state tree structures, focusing on cryptographic proofs and storage overhead.
| Feature / Metric | Merkle Patricia Trie (Current) | Verkle Tree (Proto-Danksharding / The Verge) | Idealized Vector Commitment |
|---|---|---|---|
Proof Type | Merkle Proof (SHA-3) | Polynomial Commitment (KZG) | Inner Product Argument (IPA) |
Witness Size for 1000 Accounts | ~3 KB | ~150 Bytes | < 100 Bytes |
State Sync Bandwidth (Full Node) | ~650 GB | ~40 GB (Post-EIP-4444) | ~20 GB (Theoretical) |
Enables Stateless Clients | |||
Requires Trusted Setup | |||
In-EVM Verifiability | |||
Primary Use Case | Current Mainnet State | Near-term Scaling (Danksharding) | Long-term Optimizations |
counter-argument
THE EXECUTION
The Cynical Take: Complexity and Execution Risk
Verkle trees introduce immense technical complexity that risks a botched upgrade and delayed roadmap.
Core client complexity explodes. The shift from Merkle Patricia Tries to Verkle trees is a fundamental rewrite of Ethereum's state management. This requires every client team—Geth, Nethermind, Besu, Erigon—to implement a novel cryptographic primitive, increasing the risk of consensus bugs and client divergence.
Statelessness is a multi-year gamble. The Verkle transition is a prerequisite for stateless clients and Verkle proofs. This entire multi-year roadmap, including EIP-4444 (history expiry), hinges on a flawless execution of this single, complex cryptographic upgrade.
Evidence: The Dencun upgrade (EIP-4844) required 9+ months of devnet testing. Verkle trees are a more invasive change to the core state, suggesting a longer, riskier integration timeline that could delay scaling benefits for rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism.
takeaways
VERKLE TREES
Takeaways for Builders and Investors
Ethereum's state management is undergoing its most radical overhaul since the Merkle Patricia Trie, with Verkle Trees enabling stateless clients and unlocking new scaling paradigms.
01
The Problem: Statelessness is the Final Frontier for Scaling
Full nodes must store the entire state (~1TB+), creating massive hardware requirements and centralization pressure. This is the bottleneck for scaling client diversity and light client security.
- Enables Stateless Clients: Validators can verify blocks without storing state, reducing node requirements to ~50 GB.
- Unlocks Light Client Supremacy: Light clients can verify execution locally, making decentralized apps truly trust-minimized.
- Paves Way for The Verge: This is the critical infrastructure for Ethereum's final scaling phase, enabling exponential validator growth.
~1TB → 50GB
Node Size
1000x
Proof Efficiency
02
The Solution: Vector Commitment Cryptography
Verkle Trees replace Merkle trees with polynomial commitments (KZG), collapsing proof sizes from kilobytes to ~150 bytes regardless of tree depth.
- Witness Size Collapse: Enables block witnesses small enough to fit in a single Ethereum block, making stateless verification practical.
- Parallel Proof Generation: Unlike Merkle proofs, Verkle proofs can be generated in parallel, crucial for high-throughput rollups like Arbitrum and Optimism.
- Developer Transparency: No smart contract changes needed, but infrastructure builders must update node software and indexing services.
150 bytes
Witness Size
~500ms
Proof Verify
03
Investment Thesis: The Infrastructure Rebuild
Verkle Trees will force a multi-year rebuild of core Ethereum infrastructure, creating massive opportunities for new entrants.
- RPC & API Services: Incumbents like Alchemy and Infura must re-engineer; agile competitors can capture market share.
- Next-Gen Nodes: Client teams (Geth, Nethermind, Erigon) that implement efficiently will dominate. New lightweight clients will emerge.
- Rollup Supercharger: zkEVMs (Starknet, zkSync) and Optimistic Rollups gain cheaper state access proofs, directly improving throughput and cost.
$10B+
Infra Market
2-3 Years
Migration Cycle
04
The Hidden Catalyst: Client Diversity & Decentralization
By lowering node hardware requirements, Verkle Trees attack Ethereum's greatest systemic risk: client centralization.
- Reduces Geth Dominance: Lowers barriers for alternative execution clients (Reth, Besu) to gain meaningful share.
- Resilience Against Bugs: A more diverse client base makes the network far more resilient to catastrophic consensus bugs.
- Global Validator Growth: Enables validators in regions with limited storage infrastructure, geographically decentralizing consensus.
<50%
Target Geth Usage
10x
Light Client Use
ENQUIRY
Get In Touch
today.
Our experts will offer a free quote and a 30min call to discuss your project.
NDA Protected
Confidentiality24h Response
Time to ValueDirectly to Engineering Team
No Sales Fluff10+
Protocols Shipped
$20M+
TVL Overall