You confuse blocks (disk, cheap) with UTXO set (RAM, expensive). That "35-45 GB" is blockchain history - you can prune that or archive to external storage. The emergency is the UTXO set: 38% inscription dust under 1k sats that every node must keep in RAM forever to validate new transactions. When that grows, your Raspberry Pi chokes, validation centralizes to data centers. Current blocks at 2MB doesn't mean future blocks stay there. During NFT mania, we saw 4MB witness blocks stuffed with data. Without BIP-110, the next speculative bubble fills your RAM with permanent dust. Even 1GB of forced storage is theft when I didn't consent to host your files. The cost isn't the point - the externalization is. You pay once; I pay forever. Run the numbers on RAM requirements, not disk. Or keep pretending 128GB servers are "no big deal" while node count drops.