ETHEREUM may soon be verified directly on your phone. Definitely a concentrated RPC.
Most people using Ethereum wallets do not verify blockchain data themselves. They rely on third-party infrastructure providers.
When a wallet checks an ETH balance, reads a smart contract, or prepares a transaction, it usually requests information from an RPC server.
This server becomes an intermediary between the user and Ethereum.
A new open source project wants to change that.
Meet MYOTIS.
Today at DEVCON 8, developer Dirk JÄCKEL is set to present technology that allows mobile devices to retrieve and cryptographically validate Ethereum data independent of a standard trusted RPC provider.
The project supports ANDROID, iOS and Desktop environments.
Instead of blindly relying on responses from a central service, Myotis connects to Ethereum's peer-to-peer networks.
It verifies consensus information using BLS cryptographic signatures and verifies the blockchain state using Merkel proofs.
The result?
A wallet can obtain verified balances, read smart contract information and prepare transactions using locally verified data.
And it doesn't require running a traditional full Ethereum node on a smartphone.
The technology is already available as open source software, with a development demonstration planned for Devcon.
But there is an important limitation.
MYOTIS is not yet a complete replacement for any RPC function.
Historical data access, event log queries and certain synchronization challenges remain areas of development. Its security model also maintains assumptions about initial barriers and peer availability.
Still, the direction is important.
Ethereum decentralization is not just about who produces blocks. It is also who the users must trust to access the blockchain.
If wallets can verify data directly on everyday devices, the reliance on centralized infrastructure could be significantly reduced.
The long term goal is simple.