Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Bitcoin Technical Support => Topic started by: Zeek_W on May 02, 2017, 10:18:02 AM



Title: Compressed version of blockchain for new users?
Post by: Zeek_W on May 02, 2017, 10:18:02 AM
Good evening,

I've just gotten back into BTC. Is there a way to get the blockchain in a compressed form rather than spend the full 100GB on my data? I suffer from slow speeds and bad bandwidth caps in my part of Australia. Is there another solution? Or do I have to bite the bullet?


Title: Re: Compressed version of blockchain for new users?
Post by: achow101 on May 02, 2017, 01:29:03 PM
The fastest way to sync Bitcoin Core is to let it download the blockchain normally. There is currently no way for you to get the blockchain in any compressed form.


Title: Re: Compressed version of blockchain for new users?
Post by: DannyHamilton on May 02, 2017, 01:56:24 PM
It might be an interesting service to provide a pre-pruned data directory for those that want to use Bitcoin Core but don't want to use up the necessary bandwidth to synchronize from the beginning.

Doing so would probably open up significant attack vectors since the user would need to trust that they were getting a valid blockchain, UTXO, and config file, but if a reliable trustworthy source could be found it would significantly speed up the process and reduce the bandwidth of starting up Bitcoin Core as a wallet.


Title: Re: Compressed version of blockchain for new users?
Post by: Abdussamad on May 02, 2017, 03:43:50 PM
It might be an interesting service to provide a pre-pruned data directory for those that want to use Bitcoin Core but don't want to use up the necessary bandwidth to synchronize from the beginning.

Doing so would probably open up significant attack vectors since the user would need to trust that they were getting a valid blockchain, UTXO, and config file, but if a reliable trustworthy source could be found it would significantly speed up the process and reduce the bandwidth of starting up Bitcoin Core as a wallet.

Maybe you can offer such a download? You should sign it with your PGP key and upload it somewhere.

But IMO it would just be easier for people to use an SPV wallet.


Title: Re: Compressed version of blockchain for new users?
Post by: DannyHamilton on May 02, 2017, 05:32:20 PM
- snip -
it would just be easier for people to use an SPV wallet.

I agree.  But for some reason people keep using Core (thinking it is "better" or "safer" or "more official" or something) and then complaining about how long it takes to download the blockchain and how much resources (RAM, storage, bandwidth, etc) it takes to bootstrap.


Title: Re: Compressed version of blockchain for new users?
Post by: Zeek_W on May 03, 2017, 07:44:00 AM
It might be an interesting service to provide a pre-pruned data directory for those that want to use Bitcoin Core but don't want to use up the necessary bandwidth to synchronize from the beginning.

Doing so would probably open up significant attack vectors since the user would need to trust that they were getting a valid blockchain, UTXO, and config file, but if a reliable trustworthy source could be found it would significantly speed up the process and reduce the bandwidth of starting up Bitcoin Core as a wallet.

Maybe you can offer such a download? You should sign it with your PGP key and upload it somewhere.

But IMO it would just be easier for people to use an SPV wallet.

I'm sure I could do an SPV wallet like Multibit etc. At the moment I have a lottery USB stick running on a solopool and wouldn't mind for fun/redundancy having the full blockchain local as a fallback and solo completely local except network connection. I'm definetely a hobbyist and such a long time away.


Title: Re: Compressed version of blockchain for new users?
Post by: carlfebz2 on May 03, 2017, 12:05:28 PM
Good evening,

I've just gotten back into BTC. Is there a way to get the blockchain in a compressed form rather than spend the full 100GB on my data? I suffer from slow speeds and bad bandwidth caps in my part of Australia. Is there another solution? Or do I have to bite the bullet?
Its not possible and I have the same thing on my mind too in the past which I do seek for a compressed form of whole blockchain but I failed and now I don't have any choice but to download it and same as yours I do have a very slow internet connection and believe it or not I finished my download for about 1 week of continuous downloading without any breaks but still worth it on the wait because I can now use my wallet :)