Wu Says learned that Vitalik Buterin published an article proposing a path for further streamlining state requirements and enhancing validator privacy in the Ethereum consensus layer under the context of a Lean upgrade. This includes removing validator public keys from the beacon chain state via STARK-based aggregation, having validators generate STARK proofs daily to update balances, compressing each validator's state to 1 byte of effective balance and 5 bytes of the public key index, and reducing the processing burden at the end of each epoch. Vitalik stated that this design could potentially support millions of validators. In an advanced version, validator privacy could be enhanced through daily re-anonymization of validators, ZK-STARK balance update proofs, and hidden withdrawal address commitments, breaking the public link between deposits, staking activities, and withdrawals. The mechanism could also approximate a Single Secret Leader Election (SSLE). Regarding the balance update cycle, 1 hour is the lower bound, while 1 day is more conservative.