TL;DR
- Vitalik Buterin introduces “The Verge,” a phase aimed at decentralizing node validation in Ethereum, making it accessible to all users.
- With the adoption of Verkle Trees, hardware and storage requirements will be reduced, facilitating validation without a minimum token balance.
- “The Verge” will allow nodes to run on mobile devices, speeding up validation and improving efficiency with advanced technologies like SNARK.
Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has outlined the goals and expectations of “The Verge,” a new phase in the development of the network, designed to boost participation and decentralization in node validation. This announcement follows “The Merge” and “The Surge” and will deepen the simplification of the verification process within the Ethereum network.
In recent statements, Vitalik explained that the main purpose of “The Verge” is to make participation in node validation accessible to everyone without requiring sophisticated equipment. Currently, running a node on Ethereum requires advanced hardware, which limits participation to those with specific technical resources. However, the goal is to change this dynamic, allowing anyone, from anywhere, to contribute to the security of the network more easily.
Validating on Mobile Devices
The key change in this update lies in the adoption of so-called Verkle Trees, a cryptographic structure that enables more compact proofs and facilitates stateless validation of Ethereum blocks.
This means that validators will be able to run nodes without needing a minimum token balance, opening the door to greater decentralization within the network. Additionally, node validation will be significantly sped up, reducing the required time to just a few hundred milliseconds. This technological advancement not only simplifies the process but also makes it possible for node validation to be conducted from mobile devices in the future.
Vitalik Buterin: The Democratization of Ethereum
Vitalik also explained that the long-term vision of “The Verge” involves further reducing storage requirements and continuing to improve network efficiency through the implementation of advanced technologies like SNARK, which are already being explored for future optimizations.
This approach to decentralizing and democratizing participation in the Ethereum network sets a standard for layer-2 scaling solutions, which have emerged as lighter alternatives to the main protocol. Ethereum continues to lead the way, aiming to promote an ecosystem where more users can actively participate in the security and operation of the network, without the current technical barriers
