Or one can simply allow Moore's law to take care of the bloat problem. Comparisons with VISA are very relevant here. The question that needs to be asked here is could VISA have scaled to current levels using the computer technology available in 1959 when American Express and Diner's club were offering the first credit cards?

As for blockchain pruning in its various incarnations it is a very bad idea because the "bloated information" is freely available at one point. This would allow large centralized holders to save this information, hoard it and then sell it at a premium to the average person. A simple scenario here could involve a legal dispute between and individual and a tax authority over transactions that are years or even decades old. The tax authority would have access to the old blockchain data while the individual would have to purchase that same data from a commercial data hoarder at a premium, thereby putting the individual at a significant disadvantage.