Bitcoin Forum

The Bitcoin blockchain has been the biggest one in size, compared to other blockchains, thus making sync time take quite some time. Nevertheless, as storage capacity increases each time, we've now seen new standards for mobile devices like a 200GB microSD card.

Now, storage like 200GB is far than enough to store Bitcoin blockchain data. So my question is, will there exist a possibility of running a full node from within your mobile device sometime in the future?

It would be ideal to achieve this, since mobile devices are much more accessible than PCs. Looking forward for your opinion about this.  :)

I do not think the mobile device will be a good idea to store the bitcoin block chain. It is better for the desk top.

No, I don't expect that. The 32 Go SD-card on my phone is nearly full (maps taking the most space), and I can't imagine storing the blockchain on ther, even with a 256 Go card. Another issue is data transfer. That cost money, you know. And running a node supposes a permanent Internet connection, that's rarely the case on a mobile. When I'm in the city, I'm taking elevators, I'm going into buildings or basements, when in my car I'm driving through tunnels, so my connection is cut several times a day. You can't run a node like this.

In my understanding, we do not need not to access/monitor a full node more frequently unlike a hot wallet.
When a full node does not require any of our active participation often, carrying it everywhere in mobile will not serve any purposes.

You are right that the capacity of smartphones and tablets are increasing. But you also have to take in mind that all kinds of applications get more graphic intensive (and thus require much more space), smartphone cameras are able to shoot photos and videos in 4K, etc. In that regard, the benefit of having higher storage capacities goes to waste.


I don't see why it wouldn't be possible to run a full node from your smartphone or tablet. It's just not convenient. What if the mobile Bitcoin client on your smartphone will start with checking blocks for example? This process already slows down fairly decent PC systems, how would that be with a smartphone?

Another thing is that mobile devices that people take everywhere, change from their home WIFI, to mobile network, to hotspot, etc, quite frequently. Nodes are supposed to form a stable and solid point in the network. That's why a PC or a server constantly connected to the internet, is, and will always be the best possible option.

This is not impossible, from technical side there are no obstacles for it but how much could be that used in practice without slowing down and interupting your mobile phone?
They should increase capacity a lot which is a tendency already, our smartphones are prety powerful, but there is also the question of security and stability of network.

Yeah I was wondering about that too, in terms of stable internet connection on the mobile device. Even though, you can get unlimited data for your smartphone, it would still not be enough as there will be places where signal reception would be lost. So that would be something to get around, in order to achieve this.  ;D



Good point. I didn't have that in mind before, considering that there would constant read/write on the device, thus slowing down the entire system. But the way I see it, I think it may become a reality someday as manufacturers decide to make a dedicated storage right from the device. It would be more of like an integrated SSD used only for that purpose. The other storage would be used for system files, apps, etc.  :)

Ah, okay. I know what you are talking about right now. You should include that part into OP as people may not understand your point exactly. There is no way I see manufacturers insert a dedicated bit of storage just to allow people to host a node from there. It also doesn't make sense to be honest.

It has several negative aspects.

# No benefit in doing so for the manufacturers.
# Full Bitcoin client is way too intensive for a small device, where after a certain amount of hours the device will shut down due to overheating.
# People will complain about it as they see there is a certain amount of free space, but they can't use it because it is dedicated to hosting a node.

And there probably are more negative aspects, but these come to my mind now.

It will never because of space restrictions and moreover bandwith. Such a permanent usage would kill the battery's life too quickly.

Mobile devices are evolving at such a rate that I think technically realize this is not a problem

If the blockchain sharding comes in and different levels of domains, like in Synereo for example. Then it became possible, that we don't need to download anymore full blockchain to ensure that whole chain is trusted. We need only a part of it and other part can be archived for example. In that case, mobiles might be well being "full" nodes in a future.

This is assuming phones and mobile devices will continue to run on batteries in future.  Advances are already being made with wireless charging, so who's to say there won't be a more portable version of that in future where you can continually power a device whilst on the move?  It's doubtful that such a thing could be possible in the near future, but considering the potential longevity of Bitcoin, never say never.  When you think that less than 50 years ago, the closest thing to a mobile device looked like this (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VEwmcVmLm3k/UHCQRgBKPHI/AAAAAAAAAGE/ydyEgARWJpE/s1600/nokia.png) and had to be plugged into a car to power it, you can't say with any certainty that phones won't be powerful enough to serve as a node in another 50 years, or possibly even less.

And with the looming advent of the 'Internet-of-Things', your toaster and kettle might be capable of serving as a full node in a decade or two. 

If it's not connected via Wi-Fi, I highly doubt anyone would spent their mobile bill on BTC blockchain. And, of course, I'd drain the battery very quick.

Lol I'm not going to be slowing down my phone and I'm definitely not buying such a huge sd card. The answer is no. Maybe someone will try it as a gimmick because it can physically be done, but no one will actually do it.

I don't think this be possible and not due to memory problems, thats something we can upgrade.  is because the charge of an cellphone in general works for very a little time ,if we fix it in a future maybe. But why you should run a bitcoin node in a phone this is something weird. Is better to use a computer is cheaper  and easier.

Hypothetically, if a mobile-friendly node could be created, it could run automatically when the device is charging and on a wi-fi network.

Even the power of a new model phone in this time are more than some computer's power. It's reasonable for a run the phone as nodes. About the battery, if you rather like to think the computer are using full supply, the phone can be your simple nodes.

I doubt it, but i also remember thinking that the idea of everyone having there own phone number in the mid 80's was also ridiculous ......;lol  :D

It will be years but something like this could eventually be possible.
Data storage is not the problem, we already have devices with 64 or 128 GB storage and that will get larger in coming years.
Data transmission needs more throughput.
It will be a few generations, but in another ten or twenty years who knows what cell phone data networks will look like.

This is nuts, my phone is still outdated and I don't have enough budget for buying a new phone, so usually my phone will get lag once it happen.

But don't worry, remember technology now can do everything and it is a very fast track with its innovation.

yes i believe it is possible. because the rate at which technology is advancing is a lot faster than the rate blockchain size grows.

for example a couple of years ago cell phones did not have this powerful processors and this much storage in them. and a couple of years before that there was nothing called smart phone! now look at where we are.

also something to have in mind is pruning which will reduce the size of blockchain to ~2GB if i am not mistaken.

My initial thought would be no. But I am not closing my mind to the idea. 20 - 30 years ago we would not have thought that computers in our pockets were possible, now it is a part of regular life. Maybe in the future a Bitcoin node would run in a smart phone like it was nothing. Although there is the bandwidth issue to consider.

My question would be, why would you want to use your mobile phone for that? You do not need the mobility for running a node. You can buy a inexpensive Raspberry Pi and run a node at home from a reliable internet connection. You just need to use a web wallet on the phone, so this is just not practical at the moment to run it on your phone.

In my country, mobile data is more expensive than fixed line rates, so it is not a option at all. ^hmmmmm^

Yeah you do have a point there mate. Since there is no incentive in running a BTC full node, it will be of practically no use. However, if manufacturers decide to make devices specifically to run Dash masternodes, then it would be ideal as there would be an incentive or reward, just to run a masternode to support the Dash network. Manufacturers can then decide to hard code a certain fee from within your masternodes earnings in order for them to receive a portion of your profits made. It may sound crazy, but if implemented it would help bring crypto currencies to the masses.

About the cooling system for the device, a fan-less design could be made, or maybe some kind of liquid cooling system that would keep your device cool for hours when running the node. Just sharing my thoughts.  :D

We already have a proof of concept application for android called as ABCore that allows running a Bitcoin full node on your mobile phones. The application relies on dependencies form Arch linux and supports the latest core 0.13.1 version. I believe with faster memory storage chips it would be possible to receive near SSD speeds in the future for faster reads and writes, at the same time several connectors and adapters already exist for connecting to wired internet to your mobile device. All we'd now need is a phone with a good and fast processor and RAM (probably better than raspberry pi's) on the same ARM environment. Considering this, at the end of the day you'd have a powerful node on your phone.

I think this is not needed as of yet but mobile devices, the latest ones with 128 GB and with very good processors like Samsung S7 Edge and Iphone 7 can do it without a problem. In the future I am sure we will see 256 GB storage and they may even go up to 1 TB.

Use only wireless at home and use the mobile data only when you are outside and only after syncing the full blockchain at home first so you don't spend that much.

In my country we have 3G unlimited and 4G with very low price, lots of offers.

Even though there are micro-SD which can hold the size of blockchain I don't think that it would be good for the mobile device to be as node because a node requires good cpu ram and network which would kill the battery fast.

I do not think its good and most likely it will also not happen because it has too many risks and it will indeed has a lot of negative things for your phone too.

We would need to address all the backdoors in the current cell phones but I also like the idea of setting up a peer to peer internet that stands alone outside the main network. If we can set this up in the future we would have jumped a large hurdle in the death nail of regulation through government.
Current set up says no but we could reach a day sooner than we think for a cell that could safely handle the load.

People may connect the phone with the power 24/7 but we should be sure that the cpu of a mobile phone can't be compared with a pc cpu or server's cpu. Even if it would be possible I wouldn't recommend to run a node on the phone.

I highly doubt so. Surely it's possible to develop a client for the mobile platforms with the current advancement of mobile hardware, but the big question will be if it would be effective? Would you like to lug a battery pack with you the whole day because in order to keep your phone and your client running it would require some serious battery capacity. And with the current trend of slimmer phones every year it seems like a mission impossible. Unless you carry around a bigger tablet, but it's not much better that way either.

i am sure that in future, if bitcoin is really accepted by most people, the mobile devices will be make a new concepts for mobile devices itself and they will make new mobile devices that ready to receive btc full nodes so we as bitcoin user don't have difficult when we want to download full nodes.

I see too many problems for that as well.
The bandwidth that would consume would be too high compared to the costs.
The electricity that would consume is too high for a mobile device.
With the blockchain on your sd card, there would not be much room for other stuff.

But things may get changed in near future when mobile devices are coming with inter core processors and memory cards with tera byte capacity along with unlimited bandwidth mobile phone service providers. But the thing is why we need to have full node in a mobile device when we do not need to interact it more frequently.

I admit this is an strange question to begin with but you don't run a full node to interact with it yourself all the time. you run a full node usually to support the bitcoin network that is the first and most important purpose of a full node in my opinion.
but I can still see no reason why run it on a cell phone, if you really want to do it, do it on your home pc and keep your pc running instead of your phone.

As long as we have "sufficient" number of full nodes around the world, adding more full nodes will have little advantage to the network. In addition, full nodes is memory and processing power hunger and therefore shouldn't fit into mobile devices which we carry around.

I've never thought you could actually do this with an Android device, nowdays since it would be needed faster read and write speeds in order to run a full node at optimal status. Still, I think that this can be improved and maybe sometime in the near future we will get to see even more powerful smartphones and tablets in order to help serve this purpose.

Since it is possible to run a full node on a Raspberry Pi, I was thinking of a RPi powered smartphone where you can have all the great features of texting and calling, plus at the same time being able to support the Bitcoin network. Just as 21 Inc announced the Bitcoin mining chip for smartphones, there could also exist the possibility to implement the necessary hardware requirements in order to run a full node.  ;D

It is definitely possible to run with a Raspberry Pi but it is definitely NOT practical to make it portable. Raspberry Pi nodes are usually connected to an external HDD to store the blockchain since SD cards are extremely slow and would take hours or even days to synchronize. Raspberry Pi nodes are really pushing the limits of the nodes due to the small amount of ram. Running a node with a smartphone would only cause the depletion of battery life and useless data wasted (more than 1GB per month and 50GB+ per month, depending on the nodes you are connected to).

Including a mining chip in a smartphone is an absurd idea. It wouldn't do much good since the TDP would be very limited in it and you would probably not be able to generate a single Bitcoin in your lifetime. it is definitely possible to make a phone run a full node. It is just not practical at all. If you want to support the network, run it in your living room, hidden behind the router.

Yeah it would be the best way to go nowadays. Unless, manufacturers decide to implement high end hardware into everyday devices (having full PC power) it wouldn't be worth it to support the BTC network while on the go. Still, I see that the huge advantage the Raspberry Pi has is its power consumption. It is very minimal thus, making it an energy efficient solution to run a decent node at home.

As for microsd cards, they may not be ideal for constant read/write for blockchain data, but if the idea of implementing mSATA into it becomes a reality, then it would really boost performance and thus make it an ideal solution towards HDD or SDD drives.

In my opinion, I think that BTC may have even more nodes established if there was some sort of incentive for it (like Dash Masternodes) That way, it would encourage people to run a node in order to support the network, and get a reward in return.  :)

well why not. bitcoins can be stored through bitcoin wallet by downloading an app and it is the best for u. so start from today onwards ..so do bitcoining ..kudoos :)

Sure. But I was looking more into getting rewards for Bitcoin that I'm planning to hold long term, as once you have some amount of BTC into your wallet it stays the same without ever growing into more coins. With masternodes, then I can have some amount of Dash as collateral and be able to receive some sort of interest earnings as reward. I would try lending my BTC, but I think that it is far too risky than running a Dash masternode at home instead.

Also, I'm looking for a guide or tutorial to learn more about how Dash masternodes work. If you or anybody else, can provide me with quick links to this, I would greatly appreciate it.  :)

Unlikely. If you would go and look at a majority of the prices on devices that exist, 64gigs is the maximum amount of data you can consider being viable, and that costs hundreds of dollars, and considerably more than a 200g USB or whatever.

Mobile devices are not anywhere close to being viable for nodes.

Also what are these 200g micorSD cards setting a new standard? I have yet to see a single company roll them out. Apple, Android manufacturers, none of them are using it.

That is certainly true considering the high costs of storage that would be needed in order to have a full node running at optimum condition from within the mobile device. Also, I don't think that current mobile devices would be able to handle running for hours just to run a full node (involving constant read/write, among others factors.) Nevertheless, I think that someday in the future, the possibility of running a full node at optimum condition on the mobile device would become a reality thus making the BTC network stronger than ever.

By the way, if you mean that Apple nor Android manufacturers aren't using 200GB microSD cards, then I think that you should take a look at the HTC Desire 626s, in which according to its specs, it aims to support 200GB microSD cards.  It's not that much of a deal (in terms of price per storage), but its worth looking into, especially the brand new microSD cards with higher read/write speeds (called UHS-II) ::)

Yeah. While it is possible to store Bitcoin on your phone or mobile device, it still lacks the ability to serve as a full node. Convenience is key when you want to become fully synced in the blockchain from within your mobile device by running these wallets, but I think that it could do better by enabling every device to help support the Bitcoin network.

As storage capacity and network speeds increase over time, I think that we may not be too far from seeing a smartphone to become used as a full node. It all needs the necessary hardware performance like strong CPU, better cooling, and increased storage capacity to be able to achieve this on any mobile device. Just sharing my thoughts.  ;D

You haven't even read the title properly, he's talking about using mobile phones to run a full node in the future, which I think should be perfectly possible, since technological development for these devices is going at a fast and steady pace.

Plus most people have their devices powered on 24/7 and I do expect battery longevity will also improve, though that will take a bit longer than the rest (space, bandwith & processing power)

Well, Mobile devices are the future. For us, for communication, for most of our daily works and as bitcoin is becoming an integral part of our life, it would be a great thing to think about using mobile devices as BTC full nodes. It is possible and will be a great addition to out daily life.  :)

What do you call a mobile device? I run a full node on a mobile device without any problems - it's an HP core i5 notebook, and I use public WiFi.

With still rising computing capacity of mobile phones yes it would be easily possible in my eyes but it also depends if you mean it as staying on wifi and work only as a node or  if you want to go out on mobile data, use the phone meanwhile and have the node running in background.

Lol yeah this is a great comment. :)
Sure notebooks, laptops are mobile devices too.
But I think OP is more talking about smart phones or tablets.
And for those devices I don't think we will have a possibility to run a full node in the future.Mostly due to memory space probs.
Also this is not really necessary imo.

I think I've asked this before. How do you port-forward port 8333 to your node on public WiFi. Almost all public WiFi give you a NATted private IP address and I doubt they open AND forward port 8333. Most likely you are not running a full node and you only have 8 outgoing connections and 0 incoming.

To answer the OP, I doubt mobile devices will every be the primary type of node that supports the network. Although it currently is possible to run a full node on a 4G mobile device, it is neither practical nor cost effective. Currently from a cost perspective it is bad enough to run a server-based full-node. Why would anyone run it on a mobile? In future if blockchain resource consumption does not increase as fast as technological improvements then maybe we will see more mobile full nodes. But then again, I'd expect there to be far more PC or server full nodes.

What Abiky says is really great idea, I don't know why it wasn't already thinked while this blockchain and whole things would be created. I think this technology must be improved and there won't be need of high amount of free storage and if it will be integrated in cloud storages, especially developed and designed for different bitcoin wallets and of course mainly focused on bitcoin core.

Maybe in future, but presently I don't think moile devices are designed and suitable for that purpose, there is no doubt it will greatly help but significant improvement is required

My new tablet can run an bitcoin node. It weight just 0.6kg and 15hours battery. I have run a masternode on it using a very fast 4G mobile network. I have not checked if there are a mobile phone to run it but there probably are. Same hardware would fit in a phone.

Exactly. Manufacturers would need to create high end devices that would be able to accomplish this task. As time goes by, more people would become interested into Bitcoin, thus bringing a huge interest into setting up full nodes from within everyday devices, and help decentralize Bitcoin even further. As smartphones and tablets are the most accessible devices around for everyday use, it would probably serve the purpose to strengthen Bitcoin sometime in the future. Just my opinion.  ;D

If mobile device means a tablet or smartphone I don't see it happening anytime soon. Nor is there really any reason for this as someone has already stated there's no need to have constant access to the chain but rather quick access to hotwallet funds which is easily achieved.

If anyone disagrees, what would be the ultimate benefit of having full chain on, let's say, a mobile phone?

This will not happen in developing countries, where data charges are a bomb.
Even if hardware development makes it possible to run BTC full nodes on mobile phones, we will have to overcome greedy telecom companies who charge whatever they can for mobile internet.

I agree with you, although there are micro SD with large of space but still there are problem mobile devices Will be hang because of running out of source power.
And i think The fungtion of mobile devices are not for to store the bitcoins block chain, mobile devices are just for calling and sending messages.

I don't think that would be problem to create battery with higher capacity and also what abou power bankss? They can recharge your device multiple times.

Yeah. There are many powerful batteries on the market that aims to charge several mobile devices on a single charge. Power capacity grows over time at a fast rate giving us high rates of power that would make your devices last for longer. However, the main issue here would be the high-end hardware needed, to help run the full node while at the same time have the capacity to run other apps in the background. If manufacturers decide to take the path towards making the possibility of running a full node from within any single device, then anyone would run a full node thus making the cryptocurrency more decentralized than ever.

As 21 Inc released mining chips for smartphones, then I have no doubt that the possibility to run a full node from within any smartphone or tablet will become a reality. Another thing to consider would be mobile data costs, which would limit the ability to run a full node even further. Just my opinion.  :)