What Is Stateless Client?
Also known as: Stateless Node, Stateless Ethereum
In short
A stateless client is a type of node software on the Ethereum roadmap that can verify blocks, without storing the blockchain's entire current state (balances, contract data) locally, thanks to cryptographic proofs that come with the blocks.
Today, running a full node on Ethereum requires storing the ever-growing state data on disk. To verify transactions, the node must access the relevant account and contract data. In a stateless client, on the other hand, the block carries along the pieces of state that the transactions touch and the witness data proving their correctness. The client can verify the block without storing the whole state by comparing these proofs with the state root in the block header.
This approach greatly reduces hardware and disk requirements, making it easier to run a node, speeding up synchronization and supporting the network's decentralization. The model in which block producers continue to store the state but validators do not have to is called weak statelessness.
In Ethereum's current Merkle Patricia tree structure, witness data can be impractically large. For this reason, researchers are working on new data structures such as Verkle trees, which produce much smaller proofs. Statelessness is addressed under The Verge heading on the Ethereum roadmap.
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