Bitcoin Forum

I was wonder why there weren't frequently updated torrents with the blockchain so you could download it way faster than with the Core wallet. Of course, this is less than ideal, but how much are you compromising by using this method? Let's say you check the SHA256 and MD5 hashes and it matches to the current blockchain. Would then this be safe? (is there even a way to know that the piece of blockchain you are downloading from a source that isn't the Core wallet itself is legit?)

Bootstrap torrents exist and were widely used. They're now useless with the most recent Bitcoin Core versions (0.10 and up)

Core has been adjusted so it's no faster to download a torrent separately any more. There used to be a link to the correct torrent on bitcoin.org but I guess that's no longer necessary as Core does it for you.

buy an ssd and you will be fine, i can match a 8mb connection with it easily, no need to search for fancy torrent, that may hide something unwanted

I would never ever do this. To download something from torrent that I need to depend on to take care of thousands of dollars of my personal money, no thanks.

If this comes from a secure download then no problem, but not from a torrent!

The newer client bootstraps the older blocks for you as fast as (if not faster) then downloading the torrent. I'd say that using a torrent is redundant nowadays.

Yep as others have said, there is no reason to use the bootstrap with the latest bitcoin core client.

That being said, I'm not sure that I have ever seen a "fake" bootstrap file. I doubt you could do much with a fake bootstrap file unless it had some sort of bad executable bundled with it that you happened to run.

Well, I'm currently waiting for a sync of a new node, and I'm also downloading a 2017 blockchain per torrent, just to compare. The torrent is downloading 3 times faster...

When you run Core it will connect to other nodes anyway and it will have access to the longest chain. So any new transactions that are not confirmed in the longest chain, they won't seem confirmed to you either, whatever torrent you downloaded, because new blocks are generated only by the longest chain, to which you will have access when you connect to other nodes.

The worst thing that can happen isn't in the blockchain itself, but in the chainstate folder that can be manipulated so that it shows that some address has coins that it doesn't, but this can not be manipulated to show added confirmed balance for a new address, created after you downloaded the torrent. So you will never be in a situation where you give someone your address to send you bitcoins and that it shows to you that they did when they didn't. So for regular use, it should be much of a problem, but just in case you want to use your node in some different way in the future or who knows what kind of situation you find yourself into, you shouldn't bother with downloading torrents, but let your node to check the blockchain by it self, which it will download faster then the torrent, since it has tens of thousands node that act like seeders do in a torrent and it specifically built for that purpose.

It would be okay if you download it from a trusted source because people are behind bitcoins and there is a 100% chance you may lose money for a small cause.

totally agree with you !

Darn, and then I discover that the torrent downloaded blockchain is password protected, and someone asks for money in exchange for a password. Nasty people. Would have been pretty cool, as it really downloaded WAY faster this way, and it should be safe, as the full node will have to double check the validity of all blocks anyway. I must say, that I wouldn't have started using that node until after a full day of operation, i.e. I wouldn't have trusted it quite as blindly as an organically downloaded blcokchain...

torrent they are used to spread of  kind network information blockchain communicate into network nodes via peer to peer storing information in the data i don't think it safe blockchain and torrent to combine to each other because have different function.

It's always a risk if you download things from torrent. Why get it from torrent when it's pretty much available directly from sites? That in itself is already a risk and you up that risk if you use torrent

because I'm trying to start a full node before the 2X attack. my node has been syncing for 2 weeks now, and is at less than 50%. The torrent arrived after 3 days, alas password 'protected'...

Yes you are right at your own side but I want to say this that there is many ways to which anyone can download Blockchain but here the option which has been mentioned is torrent and I know why because torrents is advance and safe way to download anything on the internet and also the most popular option is.

Yes it is safe to download Blockchain using torrent and I also favouor torrents more than others because torrent is safer and popular from others also the reason is good that it is more advance and secure from these more apps or sites using to get Blockchain that’s why I refer torrent.

I found a better torrent, which is not password protected:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:caa804f48a319b061be3884ac011656c27121a6f&dn=electrumx_1.2_btc_leveldb_490153

Total download time according to my ETA: 4 hours :)

I assume that magnet link may change, and will heopefully be updated on the page where I found it:

https://github.com/kyuupichan/electrumx

It's not more secure it really depends on where the source has come from. A torrent is just a faster way to download doesn't make it any safer or less safe.

Oh shoot, that's for Electrum, and it doesn't use the same file format as Bitcoin Core... Sorry about that...

I would say that's not the best way to download the blockchain... The best way is to get a full node, and download the Bitcoin Core client and sync from that.

When you are using a torrent you have to verify the download afterwards. When you are using the client directly you can verify while you download, thats why the pure download speed is not as important.