Welcome to Erigon!

Introduction

Erigon is an efficiency frontier implementation of Ethereum, designed to provide a faster, more modular and optimised experience. An archive node by default, Erigon uses edge technologies such as staged sync, efficient state storage and database compression, combined with high modularity.

Born as a fork, Erigon has been completely rewritten to focus on speed and storage savings. The Erigon client can complete a full archive node synchronisation in less than three days and with less than 2TB of storage, and supports several popular EVM-compatible blockchains and testnets.

Erigon offers several features that make it a good option for a node application such as efficient state storage through the use of a key-value database and faster initial synchronisation (see below).

It also offers a separate JSON RPC daemon, that can connect to both local and remote databases. For read-only calls, this RPC daemon does not need to run on the same system as the main Erigon binary, and can even run from a database snapshot.

See also Erigon roadmap here.

Faster Initial Sync

Erigon uses a redesigned "staged sync" method copied from Go-Ethereum to fully synchronize the blockchain. This staged approach breaks the sync process into different steps or "stages".

See more detailed explanation in the Staged Sync Readme.

Erigon is compatible with regular Go-Ethereum nodes doing full sync. You don't need any special capabilities for Erigon to sync with the network.

The staged sync was redesigned to group data together and minimize overwriting the database. This makes it possible to fully sync the Ethereum mainnet in under 2 days if you have a fast network connection and a solid-state drive (SSD).

Some examples of sync stages are:

  • Downloading block headers

  • Downloading block bodies

  • Recovering senders' addresses

  • Executing blocks

  • Validating root hashes and calculating intermediate hashes for the state tree

  • [...]

By breaking the sync into optimized stages, Erigon can sync faster.

Advantages of using Erigon

Some advantages of running your own Erigon node are:

  • Ability to set up your local web3 wallet to connect to Erigon, which means:

    • More privacy, no leakage of personal information such as IP address Ethereum address and transaction

    • Security, no invalid transactions from malicious nodes

    • Less dependence on third party servers

    • Censorship resistance, no other party can censor your transactions based on your IP or address

  • Improved network health (decentralisation)

  • No need to trust information about the state of the network provided by a third party

  • Participate in the decentralisation revolution

  • Ability to use Otterscan, a fast local block explorer designed to work with Erigon.

Warning

The current software is still in a preliminary preview stage and is not yet a finalized product. While every effort will be made to maintain stability and avoid disruption, as this software is still under active development, we cannot guarantee uninterrupted functionality or compatibility. Users should be prepared for the possibility of bugs, glitches, or configuration changes occurring without notice.

Kindly temper expectations accordingly, as some degree of instability is to be expected at this nascent phase, while we strive to smooth out issues efficiently.

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