Ethereum 2.0 Testnet Size Tops 75 GB as Staked Test ETH Crosses 2 Million

Support for Ethereum 2.0 is growing rapidly. In a significant milestone, Eth2’s Medalla test net has expanded to more than 75GB in size. Along with this, the number of staked test ETH on the test net has crossed well above 2 million.

Ethereum 2.0 Testnet Size Tops 75 GB

As per the latest reports, two months after the launch of Medalla, every node in the Eth2 test net is already holding more than 75 GB worth of data. It’s predecessor, the parent Ethereum blockchain, has a size of more than 452 GB.

However, it is necessary to recall that the Ethereum blockchain is supported by full nodes, just like Bitcoin. Medalla/Eth2 test net nodes, on the other hand, come under the classification of ‘archive nodes.’ Archive nodes have to ‘keep the state at every state change.

Whereas full nodes are proficient in reconstructing the state with whatever data they already have.

The reason for this exponential growth in Ethereum 2.0’s blockchain size is not known clearly, but what is apparent is that at this rate, Eth2’s archival nodes will soon surpass Ethereum’s blockchain size.

Test ETH Staked On Medalla Crosses The 2 Million Mark

As reported by CryptoPotato, last month, the number of test ETH staked on Ethereum 2.0’s Medalla network was nearing 2 million. According to the latest update on the numbers from beaconcha.in, staked ether tokens on the test net are well above 2.1 million.

The active validator count is more than 68,000 and will top 70k soon. This represents a near 10 percent appreciation in validator growth for Medalla.

Vitalik Recaps Short And Medium Phases On Ethereum Scaling

A few hours back, Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin offered an overview of how Ethereum scaling will look like in the short and medium terms.

A quick recap of the short and medium term of Ethereum scaling.

TLDR:

1. Ultra-high scaling with sharding + rollups will be possible *in phase 1*
2. Sharding is NOT “cancelled”
3. Get on a rollup asap; you get 100x scaling even without eth2 pic.twitter.com/fXW0Q3iAxu

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 5, 2020

From what it appears, sharding as a part of the scaling operation is not out of the picture. Additionally, rollups will offer a ‘offer a ~100x increase in throughput’ from the current 15-45 TPS numbers. And with sharding boosting transaction performance by 64x, collectively, rollups and sharding together will scale the Ethereum network by a gigantic 6400 times. All this without even switching to Eth2.

Vitalik also added that ‘sharded rollups’ will make the above 6400x throughput available soon as these rollups are not dependant on the release of Ethereum 2.0.

But the roadmap has an interesting unintended artefact: sharded applications by themselves need phase 2. But sharded rollups only need phase 1, because rollups use the chain only for data, not for computation. So we will have all the tools we need for 6400x throughput quite soon!

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) October 5, 2020