ETH team lead says most ETH clients ‘very aggressively’ delete old data

Ethereum team lead Péter Szilágyi said that many Ethereum clients are “very aggressively” deleting old chain segments, raising questions about network dependency on Geth.

Ethereum software client Geth (also known as Go Ethereum) continues to be the focus of controversy, with Ethereum team leader Péter Szilágyi expressing concerns about increased trust in Geth and highlighting broader impacts on data availability and decentralization of the network.

I wanted to give a direct answer, but I thought this would be an interesting thing to expand on a bit, so I’m providing a high-level tweet instead.

Bitcoiners have hated us forever because we redefined what full nodes meant (to us). We didn’t do this for any ulterior reasons, just the storage model was: https://t.co/e7YotRRFfC

— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) May 27, 2024

In a May 27

Szilágyi’s concern focuses on Ethereum’s increasing dependence on Geth for data storage, especially as the platform aims to scale up. The Ethereum team leader noted a difference among Ethereum customers; Many people, besides Geth, chose to “aggressively” remove old chain segments because they were “not needed.”

“Most other customers, as well as Geth, have started to very aggressively delete legacy chain segments because they are not needed. This is because you can rework the chain so you can ‘full sync’, but you don’t need to store the data (yes, because Geth stores it for us losers).

Peter Szilágyi

While this strategy may offer short-term benefits in terms of storage optimization, Szilágyi raised deep questions about the long-term resiliency and decentralized nature of the Ethereum network.

He specifically warned of the inherent risks associated with data dependency and the potential consequences of widespread data scrubbing, saying: “Data always tends to disappear, never to reappear, so the more people throw something away, the less likely the remaining nodes are to disappear.” .” be willing to keep/offer it themselves; and the more difficult it will be to find those few who are willing to serve him.

Ethereum clients | Source: Ethernet

The Ethereum community has long grappled with concerns about dependency on Ethereum clients.

According to data from Ethernodes, more than 40% of Ethereum customers depend on Geth, while about 38% depend on Nethermind, another software client in the Ethereum ecosystem. As a result, the Ethereum client dependency issue has led major crypto companies like Coinbase to explore alternative Ethereum execution clients to diversify their infrastructure.