Vitalik responds to Ethereum state storage controversy: Off-chain hash storage solution still faces fundamental challenges

Deep Tide TechFlow News — on May 18, Vitalik Buterin posted on X regarding the Ethereum state storage optimization proposal put forward by the community: “users store their own data; only hashes and proofs are stored on-chain.” Vitalik pointed out its fundamental limitation: the data relied upon by the verification proofs still needs to be stored and continuously updated, and its size is comparable to the current state data—so it does not truly reduce the load. He said that although workable solutions exist, they each involve multiple complex steps, and compared with the current state of Ethereum, they all require trade-offs to varying degrees.

Previously, the backdrop for the community discussion was the EIP-8037 proposal. The proposal seeks to curb state growth by significantly increasing the initial Gas costs of new contracts, accounts, and storage slots, but it is widely viewed as a band-aid rather than a cure. At present, various alternative approaches—such as crypto sharding, off-chain stateless contracts, and periodic blockchain pruning—are still being actively discussed in the community, with no final conclusion yet.