In an article released today by a16zcrypto, researchers Miranda Christ and Joseph Bonneau shed light on the intricate challenges of implementing stateless blockchains. Their extensive research delves deep into the complexities of the topic, offering a fresh perspective that promises to shape forthcoming debates in blockchain technology.
In this article, we explore their research on the growth of blockchain states, the challenges of stateless blockchains, and emerging solutions.
A Deep Dive into Stateless Blockchain Technology
Blockchains have been evolving at an unprecedented pace. With the surge in user volume and transaction frequency, the amount of data or ‘state’ that validators must store to authenticate transactions also increases.
While Bitcoin’s state is limited to unspent transaction outputs (UTXOs), Ethereum’s state includes each account’s balance and the code and storage for each smart contract. But is the growing size of blockchain states sustainable,…