Bitcoin Forum

Hi all i got a new pc recently and was thinking of downloading bitcoin core, whats the pro's and con's?

What can be seen as a benefit for some people, is being considered not to be a benefit by other people. I personally find it a benefit that you have the entire blockchain in your pc. It allows me to run a full node to support the network. But for some people it is too time consuming as it may take 1 to 3 days to download the full blockchain. It is strongly depending on the nodes you are connected with. The wallet does start quite slow from time to time if you replace wallet files frequently.

If you don't like that, you can choose to go with a light weight wallet that doesn't need you to download the full blockchain. Electrum and Multibit are good alternatives.

Bitcoin Core helps to support the network, whether you open port 8333 or not. It still helps to enforce the network rules.

Bitcoin Core itself is a trustless client which does not trust any other person other than itself. If a miner mines an invalid block which does not follow the network rules, Bitcoin Core will reject it and SPV clients would happily accept it till a longer chain emerges. Bitcoin Core has various tools for developers, the RPC interface etc. It's great for payment system.

Bitcoin Core takes a huge amount of memory space. It keeps a copy of the entire blockchain which is more than 55GB at the moment. It is projected to grow even more if the block size increase. This also means that you need to have lots of free space for it. I don't run it since I only have a 128GB built in SSD. Bitcoin Core misses out on features such as hierarchical deterministic seeds. HD wallets have a seed which the address generates from. This only require the users to make one and only backup in their lifetime (of course you need several copies). With Bitcoin Core, you need to backup every 100 transactions or so since it pregenerates 100 address everytime and uses a change address for every transaction.

I have the same thinking when I first touch Bitcoin! But after a while, I found core wallet is consuming a lot of resource and I cannot open syn the wallet 24/7! I don't like the waiting time of synchronizing when I rush to spend the Bitcoin!

The first thing you have to know is, the Blockchain has a very very big size and keep going up 'til now.

The pro is you keep a copy of the blockchain. You care contribute to the security of bitcoin world. The con is you have to wait for a few days/weeks to see your first fraction of bitcoin.

Be mind, you're going to download whole blockchain worth of 40+ GBs of data and HDD space for sync. and counting.

if you have a good desktop with powerful cpu and ssd, there are no con to core, it offer more security than spv client and it has everything you need minus some fuctions that you can integrate later via armory

Bitcoin core is very good client and herefore also a very good wallet.Easy to use imo.
When you download it you will have the full blockchain on your computer.This gives you the opportunity to run a network node and support the network.This is always welcome.
But the blockchain is quite large (+30GB) and if you haven't run it a few days it will take some while to sync depending on your bandwith.

No right now you will not get rewarded by supporting via a node.
You only get rewarded if you mine.And today the difficulty is that high that as a home miner you have no chance to compete against the big farms.The only thing you can do is joining a pool.

^Can't you link the posts altogether?

Bitcoin Core is essential for the survivial of Bitcoin, full nodes basically forms the backbone of Bitcoin. There is no reward scheme in the protocol which rewards the node. However, the number of nodes is decreasing. Hence, Bitnodes have a program which runs for a limited time and basically rewards nodes randomly. You can find out more information here: https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/incentive/. Currently, the possible reward for the winner is $10. You need to have a "PIX" score of more than 8 to qualify. Here is the algorithm for calculating it: https://bitnodes.21.co/nodes/leaderboard/, just scroll down. By running a full node with port 8333 opened, peers will connect to you and download blocks from you. It will result in a higher bandwidth usage.

I'm thinking of running a full node on a dedicated server. It costs a lot but it helps the network.

Edit: Some punctuation and grammar errors corrected.

Even those pools won't reward a lot if compared to what these big farms have been making...
You will need to invest a lot if you want to earn bitcoins through mining...

Advantage: help to support the network. Which is a kind of "altruistic" advantage

Disadvantage: time consuming, space not used for other things, harder work on your hd (which lowers its life span), slowing your machine on the operation...

Thank for explaining in brief.
I was thing of the same but one person in above comment said that It would take weeks to get fraction of bitcoin, so I thought to ask here.
Thank you guys.

Thanks everyone for the replies, i think ill give it ago, i have a new i7 with 3TB of unused hd, and my broadband is unlimited..... so i can try it out and see. 

im not even looking to use the wallet anyway as i have all my bitcoin in paper wallets.  so that isnt an issue.  bitnodes sounds interesting i might look into that.


 ;D

You can speed up the bitcoin core sync time by downloading the whole blockchain in a bootstrap.dat file, then letting your bitcoin wallet work on that. It still takes a long time to sync but it's faster than waiting for the data from nodes. You can download the bootstrap.dat file from this link.

http://www.satoshis.guru/blockchain-downloads/

On my main desktop I have bitcoin core and support the network.
On my laptop I use electrum for fast transactions and easy
sync. So I suggest using both as long as core wont bog down
your computer. Assuming you have a good comp since its new.

pro :
- emit your own transactions
- can keep wallet file as cold storage (keep my money safe)

con :
- need actually 55Go to store
- need 2-4ko/s of Upload
- need to trust the "PC" ... system operator

I would urge anyone thinking about doing this to think twice. The bootstrap.dat linked from the website could actually be some kind of attack, although I don't know exactly how the file gets used so I can't tell you what the vector might be.

Anyway, since 0.10, the bootstrap.dat method is basically obsolete. It is not faster than downloading directly over the Bitcoin network, so it serves no purpose.

It's probably too old bootstrap.dat file. 27 GB only???

Yes, please do it. We need more individuals to store the blockchain. I did with the latest desktop I've bought. Note that it's smart to have 2 computers though, if you want to do P2P or download software which doesn't come from a trustworthy source.

Bootstrap.dat gets it to about 20-ish GB of 40-something GB, so it does not get you out of a couple of days of heavy -reindex processing
I've recently been testing a variety of smaller and older PC's with bitcoin-qt client wallet and full blockchain on linux.

Pro:
You have your own copy of the whole blockchain since 2009
You can add things such as your own electrum pruned blockchain server so that you know whose node your fast wallet get its data from (and so that you can hide it up a branchline in your extensive LAN where most criminals wouldn't find it)
By choosing what sort of node it is you put in a 'vote' on the xt block size question

Con:
It needs > 50GB of HDD (Dec 2015) and will need even more next year
The overheads of running your pc 24h might be 1kWh per day electricity plus minor increased wear and tear on moving parts and storage devices.


Here is a list of (mostly failed) combinations:
bitcoin-qt 0.9.6
512MB single core 1.6GHz AMD - forget it
1024MB quad core 1GHz raspberry pi - forget it.  burned out a 64GB usb stick with too many rw before it had reindexed the blockchain
2048MB duel core 1.9GHz Dell - OK
6.2GB quad core 3.1 GHz Intel - OK, except that 0.9.6 is now obselete

bitcoin-qt 0.11.0
6.2GB quad core 3.1 GHz Intel - presently reindexing the blockchain (since 25th November)

If you don't want to know where Electrum gets its blockchain info from, then it might suit you better than running a full node.

was abit cautious about this post also so i ignored it.  op is probably genuine but prob best to avoid unless you completely know what you are doing.

I dont plan on ever using the wallet anyway, so am i right in saying this shouldnt be a problem?

in this situation, it's more safe to use a refurbished laptop PC with an i5 processor (like i5-560 ...).
200 USD for this setup on amazon.

I'm not sure what you're trying to tell us here. Why would you use 0.9.6? Seems like a slightly eccentric choice for your test client. As a miner. I would have expected you to understand the relevance of the client version in a performance test.

And what does "1.9GHz Dell" and "3.1 Ghz Intel" actually tell us? Not all clock cycles are created equally  ;)

how do i open port 8333 is it settings>options>network --conect through socks5 port?

What does than mean exactly? Other software wallets can't be kept as cold storage? It is only Bitcoin Core property?

How open port ?

they can, too.

but, the problem is the ... reading of file after ... like 5 years.  ;D
(and trust me, i have hot situation in 2014 to test this completly ... like the HD Wallet file migration  ::) ).

so yes, Bitcoin Core only keep this wallet file intact over years.

---

But you can export private key too, if you want ... but it's more long to read after (need to rescan the whole blockchain to find fund ... wallet file only scan the created date to actually last block).

You need to port forward your router to open the port.  Instructions can be found here http://portforward.com/ (http://portforward.com/)

Not really. Electrum provides a much better interface for cold storage spending compared to Bitcoin Core.
Unless you are opening port 8333, upload speed does not matter much. Download speeds matter much more.
Unless you end up getting an .exe file, it is not much of a risk. Bitcoin automatically verifies each block to ensure that it is valid.

Headers-first synchronization allows the client to download from various sources and verifies simultaneously.

Comparing clock speeds makes not much sense. The IPC matters much more, an AMD FX6300 won't win a I7 4790K even with higher clock speed.
You probably don't need to reindex that often. You can easily just copy the entire data directory from another computer so that it won't have to verify the blocks again. If you have a spare HDD lying around, that's even better, just plug it in.

I think you're right. I guess thinking about it, the .dat file is just checkpointed block data. I was thinking that maybe an intentionally malformed bootstrap.dat could be used to exploit the user somehow, but on second thoughts, it's not possible (in an obvious way, at least). Once verified, the user node consults the rest of the network, so bootstrap.dat isn't a viable attack channel.

Download and operate the core and you will literally have more power than Goldmans Sachs JP morgans Queen and the Vatican combined and be in command of a 20 Trillion Cryptocurrency empire

distributionatively speaking,

@OP,
Also, don't forget to lock your wallet with a big paraphrase, and save it written somewhere at a safe place...
Remember, you will also need a good Antivirus software in order for your PC to stay away from viruses in order for your coins to remain safe...

Thanks very much.  will get it going today.  i have 5 years downloaded on Bitcoin core already so shouldnt be long.

If you're going to use it then it is goin to take a lot of space memory so it is up to you

I recomended you to download and use bitcoin core :)
with Bitcoin Core you can help network, if i have unlimited bandwith i will download and use bitcoin Core

it's only around 55gb, many hd or even ssd can reach 1 tera easily, and i doubt the blockchain is following the more law, about storage increase

really 55gb nowadays is very tiny compared to the previous decade

try light version of bitcoin wallets, bitcoin core is heavy wallet for new users, you will need to download a big blockchain(over 45GB in size) need a good PC to run this wallet and sometime you may need to reindex whole blockchain or rescan wallet that takes too much time.good thing is its core wallet and more secure then some of wallet.you can try electrum,multibit etc

You should by all means download Bitcoin Core and run it for as long as possible (leave it open if you leave and you leave your computer turn on). By doing this you are helping the network. It is because of people running nodes that Bitcoin can function in the first place let's not forget that, so the more nodes the better.

I haven't read any bad reviews about it just yet.
Seems to be pretty secure, but if you're really going to use a wallet on your pc,
I would suggest not to use it that often if it's only for your wallet

Why not tho? Bitcoin Core is probably the safest desktop wallet possible. It has inbuilt encryption, it never shows the private key unless you really want to, and most importantly it has the actual entire blockchain saved locally. I don't think it can get any safer if you want to have a wallet in your computer.

Yes, exactly this! And if you have a powerful enough computer OP and you are saving your bitcoins in the cold storage as you have written why just not do it and help the network?!

With your configuration, you are not limited on resources. Your computer will work just fine even with the Core running! You will be doing a good deed for a community! :)

If you have a powerful computer, the Core will use very little CPU power. So it is better to run the wallet.

If in doubt, a fast wallet such as Electrum will suffice for you to keep your bitcoins safe and do your transactions.
You might want that anyway as it does not need to be on 24/7 to avoid a week of downtime every now and then while resynching an off month.

Jan 2016 specs for bitcoin-qt are :
>=66GB for the /.bitcoin/ storage directory
>=2-core x 1.8GHz cpu, 4-core i5 or higher desirable
>=1 GB RAM with plenty of RAM desirable
>=20 days on per month

You can have both, running a bitcoin core full node to support the blockchain whenever your computer happens to be on all week and using a fast wallet to do most of your bitcoin transactions.

You might also want to read up on some business last year about BIP101 and 8MB blocks.  The bitcoin core version 0.11.0 and onwards qt full nodes might not compile from source and might contain hardcode to specifically exclude the writers of BIP101 bitcoin core xt version from their previous responsibility of checking the source code.  Whether you picked a bitcoin-qt xt node or the won't-change bitcoin-core bitcoin-qt creates a vote in the xt vs not xt decision.  Cast that vote if you have an opinion.  Best to stay with a fast wallet, as those do not vote, if in doubt.

Im running bitcoin core and data directry takes up 59 gb. I wonder why the difference in size. anyway i know there not that much of a benefit in running a node but if noboddy helped in running them then bitcoin as awhole would be in a pretty bad way. If you have the hdd space and enough resources to spare to run it then why not?

My /.bitcoin/ grew a bit unexpectedly during one of the -reindex kerfuffles a while ago.  Those can take days.

The xt vs not-xt vote hardcoded into your choice of full node client is something which you want to get correct if you have the long term interests of bitcoin as one of your motivators.
By all means have a full node if you really have spare capacity for that, but you probably do want to keep your pocket money in a fast wallet which won't be offline for a bad week.