Vitalik Buterin outlines a design where nodes store and validate only user-chosen portions of the Ethereum state while maintaining security and trustlessness

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According to Buterin, these nodes verify blocks and the entire chain without storing all the data by utilizing stateless verification or zkEVM. They will be programmed to store a selected subset of data instead of a full set, and are still able to perform requests pertaining to data in the selected portion.

As Ethereum scales and the gas limit increases, running a full node requires more storage and bandwidth. Buterin said partially stateless nodes address the issue by allowing users to verify the blockchain and serve local data, but only store a subset of the Ethereum state, based on the user’s needs.