Haciyev Reşit 
The Ethereum Foundation (EF) has drawn attention to the “state bloat” problem, considered one of the biggest threats to the long-term sustainability of the Ethereum network. Foundation researchers emphasized that the network’s ever-growing data load is making it increasingly difficult to run nodes and poses risks to decentralization. As the Ethereum ecosystem expands, this problem is expected to deepen further.
What is “State Bloat” in Ethereum?
Ethereum’s “state” structure includes all information about the network’s current status, such as account balances, smart contract storage, and the code that runs applications. According to the Ethereum Foundation, the network has evolved into a global infrastructure handling billions of dollars and running thousands of decentralized applications. However, this growth brings a major challenge: the state continually grows and almost never shrinks.
The Stateless Consensus team within the foundation highlights that as the state grows, running a full node becomes both more expensive and more fragile. In a blog post, EF warned that if the state becomes so large that only a limited number of powerful operators can manage it, Ethereum’s decentralization could be compromised. While scaling solutions like Layer 2, EIP-4844 (proto-danksharding), and gas limit increases have improved transaction capacity, they also accelerate state growth.
Increasing Risks to Decentralization
Researchers noted that if only a few large, technically sophisticated operators can store and serve the full state, serious risks emerge regarding censorship resistance, neutrality, and network security. Therefore, EF actively tests when state size becomes a scaling barrier and how node software behaves under excessive data load.
Ethereum’s long-term roadmap includes stateless validation, allowing validators to verify blocks without storing the full state. This reduces storage burden on validators but shifts most state storage responsibility to expert operators like block producers, RPC providers, MEV searchers, and block explorers. However, EF acknowledges that this introduces potential challenges such as synchronization issues and censorship risks.
Three Solutions Proposed by the Ethereum Foundation
To reduce state load and make nodes more sustainable, the Stateless Consensus team proposed three approaches:
- State Expiration: Remove long-unused data from the active state and restore it when needed via cryptographic proofs. EF reports that around 80% of the current state hasn’t been accessed for over a year.
- State Archiving: Separate frequently used “active” data from rarely accessed “archival” data. This helps maintain node performance over time and ensures network stability.
- Partial Stateless Structure: Allow nodes to store only part of the state, with wallets and light clients caching the data they need. This reduces storage costs, enables more users to run nodes, and decreases dependence on large RPC providers.
Assessment
The Ethereum Foundation’s warnings and proposed solutions are critical for the network’s long-term scalability and decentralization. Steps taken to address state bloat will be decisive for both individual node operators and the broader Ethereum ecosystem. How these solutions are implemented in the coming period will be among the key factors shaping Ethereum’s technical future.
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