Why can my wallet not verify whether the RPC node it trusted told the truth?

Almost every dApp and wallet routes its blockchain queries through Infura, Alchemy, or a comparable centralized provider. Those providers can return manipulated state, censor transactions, or go offline with no cryptographic consequence for the user. Light clients can check Merkle proofs for specific values but must bootstrap from a trusted header and rely on peers for data availability. A paper accepted at IEEE ICDCS 2025 identifies the core impasse: permissionless public RPC endpoints have no accountability, while registered providers have accountability but require permissioned access, and no financial incentive exists for altruistic full non-validating nodes to serve read traffic at scale. No production system combines cryptographic verifiability, open participation, and sustainable incentives in a single protocol.