For several months, Ethereum has been multiplying updates to improve its scalability and support the explosion of decentralized applications (dApps). But this expansion now comes at a price. According to several developers of the crypto network, the amount of data stored by Ethereum is increasing at a worrying rate. And the situation could become much more serious than it seems.
In brief
- The size of Ethereum is exploding under the weight of smart contracts, saturating the capacity of validators.
- Vitalik Buterin blocked an emergency proposal, favoring long-term security.
- Centralization threatens the crypto network if storage costs continue to exclude individuals.
A state that is growing at an alarming rate
THE Ethereum “state”this is the real-time photograph of the crypto network:
- account balances;
- smart contracts code;
- data stored.
Today, this state reaches around 390 GiB. At the current rate of growth, the crypto network is therefore projected to touch a danger zone at 650 GiB in less than 1.6 years (i.e. in 2027).
Why is this critical? If the state indeed becomes too large, the hardware requirements for running a node will increase drastically. Which threatens to centralize the crypto network by excluding ordinary participants.
Decryption: fewer independent nodes means less decentralization. And this is exactly what Ethereum has sought to avoid since its inception.
EIP-8037: miracle solution for Ethereum or cure worse than the disease?
To stop the bleeding, the developers propose EIP-8037. Instead of a time-weighted rent, this proposal actually acts as a brake. It significantly increases the gas costs required when deploying new contracts, accounts and storage slots.
The idea: make writing data more expensive to encourage crypto developers to code more efficiently.
However, the measure is debated. Some believe that she especially penalizes small crypto projects. The fact is that the latter will see their deployment costs on Ethereum jump overnight.
According to Vitalik Buterin, there is no simple solution
Developer Lee Ash suggests an alternative path on X. According to him, each user should store their own data. Thus, the Ethereum blockchain would only keep hashes and cryptographic proofs.
Vitalik Buterin quickly dismissed this idea, responding:
The problem is that you have to store and update the data used to verify the evidence, which ends up being almost as large a volume as the state of the system.
Buterin therefore recognizes that alternative state management solutions exist. However, they are very complex and all involve compromises compared to current Ethereum. In other words, there is no easy path.
In any case, data growth on Ethereum is not just a technical problem. This is also an alert on the sustainability of the crypto network which has already lost 35% of its value. Without rapid, coordinated decisions, Ethereum risks having to choose between accessibility and security. The balance could then shift. The next few months will be decisive.
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