Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin has proposed a series of changes to the network’s scaling strategy, aiming to improve both user experience and efficiency. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining users’ ability to run their own nodes while expanding scalability on Layer 1 (L1). Buterin believes that partially stateless nodes can achieve this balance. This innovative design allows for local node operation by reducing storage demands without compromising full chain verification. Users could choose which data to store, with options like saving only frequently accessed account information or using a contract-based configuration system. The changes prioritize minimizing node storage and maximizing privacy. He further proposes EIP-4444, an update that reduces historical data storage needs by 36 days, and a distributed history storage system maintained via erasure coding to reduce reliance on centralized providers. To encourage efficient use of the network’s resources, gas costs for storage operations will be increased while execution costs remain relatively low. In a bid to further simplify scaling, Buterin suggests using stateless verification as an alternative to maintain node state without storing full Merkle branches.