Why is State Expansion the Ultimate Bottleneck in the Development of Blockchain Scaling Techniques?
Fuel Founder Nick Didson points out that while most of the technical aspects of blockchain scalability have been addressed, there is still no proper solution to handle state bloat. What is state bloat, and how can we reduce this problem? These are questions that every decentralized network will eventually need to address.
The issue of state bloat is the ultimate boss of scalability. In terms of blockchain scalability, there are three main technical issues that need to be solved: execution efficiency, data availability (DA), and state size control. The first two have already been addressed, with solutions such as more efficient virtual machines (FuelVM, Stylus, SVM, MoveVM) and parallel transaction execution, as well as improved precompilation. However, the problem of state growth currently has no clear solution.
Rollups, which are currently being used, do not solve the problem of state growth. The higher the efficiency, the larger the state. Possible solutions to state bloat include allowing the state to develop without intervention, introducing a cost for state space, designing a stateless system, and compressing state at the application layer. However, these solutions are still in the theoretical or discussion stage and have their own limitations.
State growth is usually proportional to execution speed. As the efficiency of a blockchain increases, the size of the state also tends to increase. This poses a problem for decentralized networks claiming high execution efficiency, such as BNB Chain and Sei to Base, as they face rapid state bloat.
Bitcoin’s state growth is slower due to its lower network efficiency and the use of the UTXO model, which does not record accounts without balances in the state. In contrast, Ethereum’s state model consists of rich ecosystem components such as account balances, smart contract codes, and contract states. Due to the growth in network accounts, tokens, and contracts, Ethereum’s state increases rapidly.
Although there are no clear solutions, developers have proposed several strategies to manage state bloat. These include allowing state growth in exchange for greater bandwidth usage, charging users for storing state data, designing a stateless system, and compressing state at the application layer.
Currently, most blockchains are facing the problem of state growth. While existing solutions are still in the theoretical or flawed stage, it is certain that the issue of state bloat is gaining more attention, and further solutions can be expected in the future.
