Vitalik Buterin proposed that fixed node operation costs should remain low to ensure a competitive validator market

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If we want to set limits, we can start asking the question: what is the goal of those limits? Some possible answers are: Fixed costs should be low enough to ensure a highly competitive market Energy requirements should be low enough to run from a home (ie. max ~15 kW), so that Ethereum is strongly protected from dependency on data centers, which are easy censorship choke points