Verkle Trees: Superior Ethereum Solo Staking Benefits, Confirms Vitalik Buterin

According to Vitalik Buterin, the implementation of Verkle Trees in Ethereum’s protocol will benefit solo stakers and network nodes. Buterin explained the advantages of this technological upgrade in a post on X. Verkle Trees are expected to enable “stateless validator clients,” allowing staking nodes to operate with minimal hard disk space and instant synchronization. Buterin previously outlined a five-step process to bring Ethereum’s smart contract blockchain to its “endgame.” This process began with the activation of the Beacon Chain, which shifted Ethereum to proof-of-stake consensus in September 2022. Verkle Trees are part of the development roadmap, specifically falling under the Verge stage.

The Verge phase involves introducing Verkle Trees to optimize data storage and node size. Buterin published a documentation titled Ethereum Improvement Proposal in 2022, where he explained the technical details of Verkle Trees. These trees function similarly to Merkle Trees, totaling all transactions in a block and providing proof of the data set’s authenticity. Verkle Trees are more efficient in terms of proof size. They use a specific type of hash called a vector commitment, which is passed to sub-nodes. The use of vector commitments will have long-term benefits for the Ethereum network.

The main benefit of Verkle Trees is that they help Ethereum achieve statelessness. This means that nodes verifying blocks will no longer need to store the “state” of Ethereum. The smaller proof sizes enabled by Verkle Trees can fit within each block of the Ethereum blockchain, allowing nodes to verify blocks using the data contained in the block itself. Implementing Verkle Trees will result in various new functionalities, such as lower hardware requirements for running Ethereum nodes, ultimately improving decentralization. New nodes will be able to join the network almost instantly and sync with the network quickly.