Archived mode

Ethereum archive nodes store the full history of the blockchain for the Ethereum mainnet. They work just like a full node but also store an archive of all historical states since the start of the network.

With a full node, you are limited to querying the last 128 blocks to see the balance of an address and the state of a smart contract at a point in time. Full nodes, which make up most nodes on the network, are only able to query data for the last 1,664 seconds, or ~27 minutes.

So, with an archive node you can query any block for an address balance or a smart contract state to see what they looked like at a specific point in time. This is a clear necessity for anyone hoping to provide any sort of complete analysis of the Ethereum mainnet.

Being said, this Archived node mode queries the historical balance of the token address.