A newly proposed Ethereum upgrade seeks to dramatically reduce the cost and complexity of running a node on the network, potentially reshaping one of the foundational elements of blockchain infrastructure.
At the heart of the proposal is a local-first design that would allow users to operate nodes on standard consumer devices without the need to store the full Ethereum blockchain - currently more than 1.3 terabytes.
The idea, spearheaded by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and published through the Ethereum Research blog, aims to address one of the most persistent tensions in blockchain systems: the tradeoff between decentralization and scalability.
If implemented, the proposal could lead to the broadest expansion of Ethereum node operators in years by slashing the hardware requirements for participation. But as with most protocol-level transformations, the path forward involves substantial engineering, potential risks, and questions about what decentralization should really look like in an era dominated by institutional validators and centralized infrastructure providers.
Operating a full Ethereum node today is effectively out of reach for most users. According to data from Etherscan, the storage footprint exceeds 1.3 TB, and even with pruning and other efficiency measures, the hardware, bandwidth, and uptime requirements remain significant.
That leaves much of the network's infrastructure dependent on cloud platforms, large validator firms, or centralized API providers like Infura or Alchemy. Critics argue this structure weakens Ethereum’s original promise of being a trustless, censorship-resistant system. Vitalik Buterin’s new proposal aims to shift this balance by enabling “local-first” nodes. Rather than downloading and storing the entire chain history, users would sync only with data subsets relevant to their activity and verify historical or off-chain data on demand.
This approach would represent a radical departure from current models, where each full node replicates the chain’s global state and historical transactions.
How Local-First Nodes Would Work
Under the proposed model, nodes would:
- Store only a subset of the Ethereum state, such as addresses or contracts the user is interested in.
- Query external nodes when data outside that subset is needed.
- Verify requested data cryptographically, ensuring it hasn’t been manipulated.
- Rely on distributed storage for older historical data, divided across participating nodes.
The design draws inspiration from distributed file-sharing systems like BitTorrent or interlibrary loan systems - no single participant has everything, but the network maintains data availability through sharing and redundancy.
“This is about creating a system that allows users to interact with the Ethereum network without depending on major infrastructure providers,” Buterin wrote. “It reduces trust assumptions and opens the door for more grassroots participation.”
The Risks of Centralized Infrastructure
The backdrop to this proposal is a growing concern over Ethereum’s creeping centralization. As node operation becomes increasingly resource-intensive, smaller participants are pushed out, leaving a handful of companies and data centers in control of how Ethereum data is accessed and verified.
This is especially troubling in light of recent censorship pressures and compliance enforcement by major U.S. regulators. If data access becomes bottlenecked through a few providers, the ability to deplatform or surveil users increases significantly.
“Running a personal node is not just about trustlessness - it’s also about resisting censorship,” Buterin wrote, noting that Ethereum’s resilience depends on “diverse infrastructure, not centralized gateways.”
This concern has only grown with the emergence of liquid staking providers like Lido, which now dominate Ethereum's validator landscape. Critics warn that without meaningful changes to the incentives and architecture, Ethereum risks becoming functionally centralized - even if it’s technically decentralized.
A Key Step in Ethereum’s Broader Roadmap
Buterin’s proposal aligns closely with the objectives of Ethereum’s broader technical roadmap, particularly as outlined in the Pectra upgrade, which began rolling out in early 2025. That upgrade introduced major improvements to wallet usability and validator performance, aiming to streamline the overall Ethereum experience.
The local-first node concept could eventually tie into other components of Ethereum’s evolution, such as statelessness, modularity, and data availability sampling. These features aim to make Ethereum not just scalable but also sustainable over the long term - something that’s proven challenging as usage and state size continue to grow.
Making node operation accessible on mobile devices, a goal Buterin floated as early as 2023, is a longer-term ambition. However, the local-first framework could lay the technical groundwork to get there, especially if it’s combined with upcoming improvements to data compression and zero-knowledge proofs.
Community Reception: Cautiously Optimistic
Initial reactions from the Ethereum developer community have been largely supportive but also measured in their enthusiasm.
Michael Cameron, co-founder of Vanilla Finance, called the proposal “a breath of fresh air,” noting that it helps bridge the gap between the principles of decentralization and the operational realities faced by most users today. Still, he cautioned that making it work would require sophisticated fallback systems and a high level of participation.
“The main challenge is ensuring that data retrieval and state subset selection don’t introduce new attack vectors or complexity,” Cameron said. “This only works if enough nodes participate and data remains reliably available.”
Ryan Yoon, senior analyst at Tiger Research, echoed the sentiment. “Distributing data across nodes could solve the centralization crisis, but it needs rigorous modeling. It’s not just about reducing costs - it’s about maintaining security guarantees.”
Others pointed out that scaling down storage doesn’t eliminate the need for bandwidth and uptime - two other major constraints on running nodes. If a user still has to sync frequently with remote nodes or large validator networks, the decentralization benefits may be more cosmetic than substantive.
Technical Challenges Ahead
While the vision is compelling, implementing it raises several tough engineering questions. Among them:
- Data subset selection: How will nodes determine which parts of the state they need to store?
- Fallback trust models: If a node pulls data from another source, how can it verify that data without full context?
- Availability guarantees: What happens if too few nodes store a given piece of data?
- Incentives: What encourages users to store and serve data subsets for others?
Some of these challenges may be addressed through cryptographic proofs, such as Merkle proofs or zk-SNARKs, which allow nodes to verify data without storing it. Others may require new incentive models, such as lightweight staking or data availability bonds.
Implications Beyond Ethereum
If successful, Ethereum’s shift toward local-first nodes could set a precedent for other blockchains grappling with similar issues. Bitcoin has long faced criticism for centralizing its node infrastructure in cloud servers, and emerging Layer-1s like Solana and Avalanche face mounting pressure to improve decentralization without sacrificing performance.
At a time when crypto is under global regulatory scrutiny and centralized exchanges and services face increasing surveillance, maintaining a decentralized core infrastructure has never been more crucial.
It could also change the conversation about blockchain accessibility. If running a node becomes as easy as installing an app, it could open up participation to millions of users in emerging markets, enhancing both the inclusivity and resilience of the Ethereum ecosystem.
Final thoughts
The proposed local-first Ethereum node design is part of a broader attempt to reimagine what decentralization means in practice. As Buterin and others have noted, decentralization is not a binary - it’s a spectrum. And it needs to be actively maintained and retooled as technology, user behavior, and political conditions evolve.
While the technical road ahead is long, the principles behind the proposal resonate deeply: reduce reliance on powerful intermediaries, empower users to participate directly, and maintain Ethereum as a robust, permissionless infrastructure layer for the internet.
As Ethereum inches closer to being a global settlement layer for everything from decentralized finance to real-world assets, ensuring that users can verify and interact with the network independently is not just an upgrade - it’s a necessity.