Vitalik has published an article discussing a new node model to encourage individual users to run a local node

BlockBeats News, May 19, Vitalik posted on the ethresear forum discussing how to scale the Ethereum main chain (Layer 1, L1) while reducing the difficulty of running a full node (especially nodes run by individual users) to maintain decentralization and user privacy.

The article outlined a multi-faceted strategy aimed at reducing the resource requirements of running an Ethereum full node through short-term (EIP-4444, distributed storage, gas price adjustments), medium-term (stateless validation), and long-term (partially stateless nodes) measures. This not only helps with L1 scalability but also preserves Ethereum's decentralization and user privacy, avoiding overreliance on centralized RPC providers or costly cryptographic solutions.

The article also introduced a new node model: Partially Stateless Nodes. These nodes perform stateless validation of blocks and validate the entire chain (via stateless validation or ZK-EVM) but only store a subset of the state relevant to the user. Nodes can respond to RPC requests involving this subset of state, while other requests will fail (or users can choose whether to fall back to an external cryptographic solution).