Vitalik proposes methods to reduce Ethereum protocol bloat in the 'Purge' upgrade roadmap

Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin outlined a possible "Purge" upgrade roadmap in his latest article, aimed at gradually addressing the complexity and "inflation" issues of Layer 1.

Vitalik wrote in an article published on October 26th that the expansion of a protocol is mainly due to the addition of features and the accumulation of historical data. Currently, running an Ethereum node requires approximately 1.1TB of disk space for executing clients (databases that connect to the Ethereum network and hold its data), as well as hundreds of GB of storage space for consensus clients (implementing Ethereum's proof of stake consensus mechanism).

He stated that reducing the need for each node to permanently store all historical records, in addition to unnecessary protocol functions, can achieve this goal of reducing bloating while still maintaining the permanence of the memory blockchain.

Vitalik wrote, "If we make node operation more affordable, we can achieve a network with 100000 nodes, where each node randomly stores 10% of historical data, and each data fragment will be replicated 10000 times - this is exactly the same replication factor as in a network with 10000 nodes where each node stores all data

He also proposed some effective methods to clear Ethereum's state, including account balance, contract code, and contract storage, which may cause a client's storage requirements to continue to increase.

Vitalik has explored "Merge," "Surge," "Scourge," and "Verge" upgrades in a recent series of articles. In his fifth article on "The Purge," he wrote:

Finding this path for Ethereum in a more universal way and moving towards a long-term stable end result is the ultimate challenge for Ethereum in terms of long-term scalability, technological sustainability, and even security

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