Buterin Backs Bitcoin-Inspired Scaling Design for Ethereum
Ethereum's persistent payment state and large transaction batches could soon be reduced by a new scaling design backed by co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
The proposed approach draws inspiration from Bitcoin, using an UTXO (Unspent Transaction Output) model to shrink storage needs and bundle transactions into compact proofs. According to estimates, this could cut persistent storage from 150 gigabytes per billion accounts to around 300 megabytes per billion spent outputs.
This design combines two separate ideas: UTXO-style tracking for simple payments, and batching transaction checks into compact proofs. The latter would allow block builders to publish a single 128 kB summary for large payment batches.
Buterin praised the Bitcoin developers behind Utreexo for pioneering these ideas, stating that Ethereum should support UTXO-style and dynamic account state without forcing every node to carry the same expanding burden. However, Cardano co-founder Charles Hoskinson criticized Ethereum for copying their coin-tracking model.