Vitalik proposes the "Minimal Consensus Chain" solution: reconstructing the Ethereum consensus layer with ZK-STARK, aiming to support millions of validators.

BlockBeats News, July 6 — Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin released a new research article titled "The Extremely Lean Chain," proposing a design to significantly streamline Ethereum's consensus layer. Through "Lean" upgrades such as single-slot finality, recursive STARK proofs, and aggregate quantum-resistant signatures, the plan aims to drastically reduce the storage requirements of consensus chain states, while shifting more state management and zero-knowledge proof (ZK) responsibilities to validators. Vitalik believes this approach could eliminate the complex periodic state processing of the current beacon chain, substantially reduce system overhead, and enable Ethereum to scale to millions of validators in the future, while also enhancing validator anonymity.

According to the design, validators no longer need to store a large amount of information such as public keys, withdrawal credentials, activation and exit data on-chain long-term. Instead, only a minimal core state — such as effective balances and public key indices — is retained, with the remaining data submitted for verification through STARK proofs on a periodic basis. The scheme also introduces mechanisms such as daily balance update proofs, ZK-STARK privacy protection, and daily re-randomization of validator identities, further enhancing network scalability while strengthening privacy and censorship resistance. Vitalik stated that with an approximately daily proof cycle, the scheme can generate proofs on ordinary hardware, and reduce on-chain burden through proof aggregation, providing a new technical pathway for the long-term scaling of Ethereum's consensus layer.