Pruned node

A pruned node is a full node that has validated the chain but deleted older block bodies and historical state to reduce storage, retaining only recent data.

Pruning keeps a node's footprint manageable: it still validates every block, but discards the historical state it no longer needs to follow the tip. The cost is that queries for balances, storage or logs at old blocks fail, because the data is gone. Applications needing point-in-time history must use an archive node instead. We run archive nodes that keep full state and block history, so historical eth_getBalance, eth_getLogs and trace calls resolve where a pruned node would return nothing.