Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, has released the fifth installment of his blog series "The Purge," aimed at reducing redundant data and simplifying the Ethereum protocol.

- The main goal of "The Purge" is to reduce the amount of data stored and remove deprecated features to improve network efficiency.

- This will not affect gas fees, but could improve network performance and reduce operational costs.

- A fully synchronized Ethereum node currently requires over 1.17 TB of storage. 📉

Buterin proposes to reduce storage requirements by reducing the need for each node to constantly store the entire history.

- The new approach involves partial "state expiration," where less frequently used data can be temporarily deleted and restored later using cryptographic proofs.

These changes could make block verification more accessible and secure, even for mobile and browser wallets.