Ethereum Foundation Announces Three Revolutionary Projects: Nodes Are About to Become More Democratic

Good news for the Ethereum community: operating a node will no longer be reserved for those with powerful servers and deep pockets. What is the Ethereum Foundation? It is the organization behind designing these technological solutions—a key entity guiding the long-term development of the network. Recently, they announced three technical plans that have the potential to reshape the entire Ethereum node landscape.

What Bottlenecks Are Causing the Ethereum Ecosystem to Face Challenges?

Imagine each Ethereum block as a page in an immutable ledger—data that is never deleted, only continuously accumulated. After years of operation, the network’s (entire state information—about account balances, smart contracts, and related data)—has grown to enormous sizes.

This creates an unavoidable problem: to run a full node, you need to store multiple terabytes of historical data. Not only do you need massive disk space, but also abundant RAM, stable network bandwidth, and significant electricity costs. The result? Only organizations with substantial resources can operate nodes, which pushes the network toward centralization—contradicting the original spirit of blockchain.

The Ethereum Foundation recognizes this risk and has decided to take action. The three new initiatives are direct solutions to this problem.

Three Technical Mechanisms Set to Change Everything

State Expiry: Intelligent Cleanup System

Instead of permanently storing all state data as an unchangeable treasure, State Expiry introduces the concept of “expiration.” State data that remains inactive for a long time will be moved to a different storage, significantly reducing the amount of data nodes need to process daily. Benefits? Nodes become lighter, faster to start, and less resource-intensive.

State Archive: Specialized Historical Library

If State Expiry is about “forgetting,” then State Archive is about “secure storage.” Old state data will be moved into a separate archival storage, still accessible when needed to verify past transactions, but not cluttering the main operational space of the node. This ensures historical integrity without impacting real-time performance.

Partial Statelessness: A Major Breakthrough

This is the boldest idea: what if nodes can validate a new block without storing the entire state locally? Instead, they only need small cryptographic proofs, called witnesses, to verify validity. This greatly reduces hardware requirements—a typical laptop could run a node without investing in expensive servers.

Impact: From Node Operators to the Entire Ecosystem

The immediate benefit is for those operating nodes—lower costs, fewer difficulties, increased accessibility. But the broader implications are even more significant.

By lowering entry barriers, more diverse participants will be able to run nodes. A network with tens of thousands of independent nodes will be more resilient against censorship efforts or attacks. Security increases not through cryptography alone but through true decentralization.

Moreover, the Ethereum Foundation also plans to improve the RPC (Remote Procedure Call) infrastructure—the tool used by applications to communicate with the blockchain. As nodes become lighter, RPC can be more easily distributed, leading to smoother and more stable user experiences.

Roadmap: A Blink or a Long Race?

An important point to understand: these are research initiatives, not immediate upgrades. The Ethereum Foundation is outlining a strategic vision for the next 5-10 years.

The deployment path will include:

• Deep research phase: core developers continue developing theories and testing assumptions
• Community discussions: proposals (EIPs) will be publicly shared to gather feedback from the entire community
• Testnet experiments: solutions will be thoroughly tested on test networks before mainnet deployment
• Gradual rollout: upgrades may occur in multiple phases to ensure stability

This announcement, while not an immediate change, reflects a strong commitment: the Ethereum Foundation is proactively building a future where anyone—from professional developers to blockchain enthusiasts—can operate a node without excessive investment.

Frequently Asked Questions

How does this “state bloat” issue affect Ethereum?

State bloat makes running nodes increasingly expensive. If left unaddressed, in 5-10 years, only powerful organizations will be able to operate nodes, leading to centralization and loss of censorship resistance.

Will State Expiry delete my transaction history data?

No. Data will only be moved to separate storage, still accessible and verifiable when needed. Users won’t notice any difference.

How does Partial Statelessness work while ensuring safety?

It uses cryptographic proofs (Merkle proofs or similar). Instead of storing the entire state, nodes only need to verify whether changes are valid according to the proofs. Safety is maintained because any errors will be detected.

When will these initiatives be deployed on mainnet?

There is no exact timeline yet. These are long-term projects, potentially taking 5-10 years to complete research, testing, and safe deployment.

What should node operators do to prepare?

Nothing special right now. When the proposals are ready, the Ethereum Foundation will provide detailed upgrade instructions. For now, just continue running your node normally.

What benefits do regular users get?

You will benefit from a more decentralized, secure, and sustainable network. dApps will run faster and more reliably on a better node infrastructure.

Conclusion: The Near Future of Decentralization

The three initiatives from Ethereum Foundation are not just minor technical adjustments—they are a strategic turning point to protect the core values of blockchain: decentralization, censorship resistance, and long-term sustainability.

By directly addressing resource burdens, these proposals open the door for millions of people to participate in network security. An Ethereum with widely distributed nodes will be a stronger, more resilient Ethereum, true to its original vision. The era of “popular” nodes has arrived.