Bitcoin Forum

Other => Beginners & Help => Topic started by: JohanS on June 07, 2013, 10:45:36 AM



Title: blockchain?
Post by: JohanS on June 07, 2013, 10:45:36 AM
If bitcoin become more widely used and the numbers of transactions increase, the size of blockchain will increase, right?

At what point will the size of blockchain become an issue/problem?



Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: tescomatty on June 07, 2013, 10:49:10 AM
If bitcoin become more widely used and the numbers of transactions increase, the size of blockchain will increase, right?

At what point will the size of blockchain become an issue/problem?




the blockchain can be pruned if the space becomes a problem


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: JohanS on June 07, 2013, 11:15:08 AM
Ok, of cause.

... and all transactions will still be tracable as the "old" parts will be available, even if they no longer are a part of the live chain.

Anyone have a guestimate on at what size this can happen?

50 GB

100 GB

1 TB?



Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: Eva Braun on June 07, 2013, 02:39:58 PM
blockchain is safe


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: Alexander The Great on June 07, 2013, 04:11:54 PM
I use blockchain.info


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: lch on June 07, 2013, 04:19:10 PM
If bitcoin become more widely used and the numbers of transactions increase, the size of blockchain will increase, right?

At what point will the size of blockchain become an issue/problem?

The answer is it depends. It depends on the amount of memory and bandwidth people have.


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: dbkeys on June 11, 2013, 10:04:21 PM
Currently, 4 TB SATA hard drives are readily available. I think in general, hard drive storage capacity will outpace growth of the blockchain, (Here is a nice graph of its growth: https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size) At 4 TB, a single one of these drives could hold a blockchain 400 times as large as it is today. But I agree that at some point, old historical data should be relegated and only "newer" data by some criteria should be required for a functional wallet.


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: PeterB on June 11, 2013, 10:58:08 PM
If bitcoin become more widely used and the numbers of transactions increase, the size of blockchain will increase, right?

At what point will the size of blockchain become an issue/problem?



Starting to become a problem for some users.  There are many wallets that do not require you to download the whole blockchain.


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: mprep on June 11, 2013, 11:25:25 PM
Currently, 4 TB SATA hard drives are readily available. I think in general, hard drive storage capacity will outpace growth of the blockchain, (Here is a nice graph of its growth: https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size) At 4 TB, a single one of these drives could hold a blockchain 400 times as large as it is today. But I agree that at some point, old historical data should be relegated and only "newer" data by some criteria should be required for a functional wallet.
If you have such drive then it's OK but not everyperson has such hard drive.


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: niko on June 12, 2013, 12:21:33 AM
A better question to ask is: does blockchain grows faster or slower than cost of storage diminishes? Remeber your hard drive five years ago?

All this has been discussed at length and in depth. Try bitcoin wiki and stack exchange. Even better, do your own research, calculate, and arrive at your own conclusion.

Here are some leads:
http://www.mkomo.com/assets/hd-cost-graph.png
Note the log scale.

Also, see here: http://ns1758.ca/winch/winchest.html


Title: Re: blockchain?
Post by: rme on June 12, 2013, 06:08:52 PM
HDDs are cheap, size can keep incresing.