Key Short-Term Scalability Feature Still Needs Research, Says Vitalik Buterin

At the Unitize conference, Vitalik Buterin, a co-founder of Ethereum, provided an up-to-date picture on the latest progress and problems for the stateless client transition. But the research also has important implications for Ethereum 2.0: Buterin also highlighted that stateless clients are being studied in other blockchains as well, including Bitcoin.

But the technology has several important drawbacks due to current inefficiencies in Ethereum, which could result in a maximum witness size of 405 megabytes for each block. The presentation suggests that stateless clients may not be coming to Ethereum any time soon as they hinge on breakthroughs in cryptographic research.

Timeline of Bitcoin, Ethereum