Vitalik Buterin offers new Ethereum roadmap
Vitalik Buterin proposes lightweight Ethereum nodes to boost decentralization
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a set of upgrades to improve accessibility for users running local Ethereum nodes.
In a blog post, Buterin stressed the importance of individuals operating both full nodes and personal RPC (remote procedure call) servers, suggesting that decentralization should not rely solely on large-scale infrastructure providers.
Currently, running an Ethereum node remains a heavy task. As of May 19, the network hosts just over 10,000 active nodes, with full chain data now exceeding 1,300 GB—a figure that has grown more than 20% in the past year. Much of Ethereum’s node activity is still concentrated in major data centers, especially in the United States and Germany, reinforcing concerns that Ethereum’s decentralization could become skewed toward centralized regions.
Partial-state and lightweight RPC nodes on the horizon
Buterin’s vision includes creating lighter node types—specifically, partial-state nodes that only store data relevant to a user’s activity. These lighter clients would help verify transactions without needing to maintain the entire Ethereum archive. This move could significantly reduce both storage demands and bandwidth requirements, encouraging broader participation from smaller entities or individuals.
He also addressed the bottleneck created by centralized RPC providers, some of which censor access by excluding entire countries. Encouraging a wider, more distributed network of smaller RPC nodes could help reduce censorship risks and reinforce Ethereum’s neutrality as an open platform. The idea is to shift Ethereum’s infrastructure away from reliance on a few dominant actors.
EIP-4444 seen as a foundational step
One of the key technical changes Vitalik emphasized is Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 4444. If implemented, this change would limit full node data retention to just 36 days, allowing clients to prune historical data locally. Nodes would no longer be required to serve data over a year old via peer-to-peer networks. While archive nodes would still offer long-term history for institutional and audit needs, most RPC and personal-use nodes would be drastically lighter.
These changes come at a time when Ethereum is handling over 1.38 million transactions daily and reclaiming its role in DeFi and on-chain activity. Yet, despite renewed network usage, ETH’s price has recently slipped below $2,400. But Buterin’s call to action is clear: making it easier to run a node is critical to Ethereum’s long-term health, resilience, and decentralization.
Recently we wrote that Ethereum’s latest upgrade, Pectra, has officially gone live, marking a pivotal moment for the network as it introduces advanced features like account abstraction, increased staking limits, and enhanced scalability.
