Simplified State Storage Rent for EVM Blockchains

TL;DR

This paper proposes a simplified, granular approach to implementing state storage rent in EVM blockchains, shifting rent costs to transaction senders to improve scalability and decentralization.

Contribution

It introduces a new, less complex method for distributing storage rent payments across peers, facilitating easier adoption in EVM-compatible chains.

Findings

Reduces complexity of storage rent implementation

Shifts rent burden to transaction senders in a quasi-random manner

Provides a practical foundation for initial adoption on EVM chains

Abstract

Uncontrolled growth of blockchain state can adversely affect client performance, decentralization and security. Previous attempts to introduce duration-based state storage pricing or 'storage rent' in Ethereum have stalled, partly because of complexity. We present a new approach with finer granularity to "spread" rent payments across peers. Our proposal shifts the burden of state rent from accounts to transaction senders in a quasi-random manner. This proposal offers a simple path for initial adoption on Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains, and serve as a foundation to address remaining challenges.