IPFS for Reduction of Chain Size in Ethereum

Abstract

In this paper we propose a system that moves the bytecode of an Ethereum contract creation transaction off-chain. As blockchains are append-only we present a way to help reduce the chain size and growth for Ethereum. Contract creation transaction data is replaced with hashes which identify a file in InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). Doing so reduces the size of data stored in such transactions by 93.86% in our dataset. The proposed system retains the assurance provided by blockchain and reduces network traffic under certain conditions.