Definition ∞ State access refers to the ability of a smart contract or transaction to read from and write to the persistent data stored on a blockchain. This data, known as the blockchain’s state, includes account balances, contract variables, and other relevant information. Efficient and secure state access is fundamental for smart contract execution and network operations.
Context ∞ Optimizing state access is a continuous area of development for blockchain scalability, with news often covering improvements in storage mechanisms or execution environments. Debates frequently concern the costs associated with reading and writing state, known as gas fees, and how these impact the complexity of decentralized applications. Innovations like stateless clients aim to reduce the burden of maintaining the entire chain state.
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