The increased availability of computer hardware for local launch has helped solve one of Ethereum's main infrastructure problems: the high cost of hardware for end users. Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, confirmed this synergy by demonstrating the parameters of his Geth node: after pruning, it occupies only 461 GiB. High-performance workstations, which enthusiasts purchase in large quantities for local use of large language models, already exceed the technical requirements for blockchain nodes. As a result, the excess of local computing power transforms home computers from terminals for accessing someone else's cloud into independent computing nodes. This hardware allows users to run AI workloads, independently verify the blockchain, and conduct secure transactions, completely eliminating intermediaries.
Thanks to the integration of the EIP-4444 standard and optimizations in snap sync, full nodes can now synchronize in about 12 hours, and disk space requirements have dropped below 0.5 TB. For owners of GPU-based AI devices, such as NVIDIA RTX 5090 cards or DGX Spark systems, these requirements are negligible. High-speed, capacious NVMe drives are already part of their PC setups for storing AI model weights, so running a node becomes an additional background process. The next hard fork, Glamsterdam, will further accelerate synchronization at the base layer (L1).
The technical improvement of nodes coincides with the growing demand for privacy. Buterin noted that in his workflow, he increasingly replaces browser-based decentralized applications with a command-line interface (CLI). The reason is security: web interfaces embed calls to commercial RPC providers, allowing them to collect user metadata. The logical next step in this trend is kohaku-cli, a command-line wallet being developed with support from the Ethereum Foundation. The project aims to provide privacy "out of the box" and is already in alpha testing of private balance management features that integrate ZK protocols such as Tornado Cash, Railgun, and Privacy Pools.
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