Bitcoin Forum

Hi all,

I did a (quick I admit) search but didn't find any solid answer, so I'm posting as a new thread, apologising if this is mentioned somewhere else.

Since every transaction that has ever been made, is kept in the BlockChain and new transactions add up all the time, doesn't that mean that at some point in the future, the BlockChain will be too large to operate?
I understand that as more people join in, they add-up in the "capacity" of the network, but that would mean a lot more transactions as well.
If I'm not mistaken, the current size of the BlockChain is about 1,5Gbytes, and the network is in operation for 3 years. How big will the BlockChain be in say 20 years, if Bitcoin succeeds and continues to expand? Will that size be manageable?

Thank you for your answers.

I don't think the block chain will ever be to large to operate but it will become quite hefty to download - by that time, available bandwidth for your average bitcoin user may have also increased. However, do some research on 'thin clients' and you will see one of the solutions on handling the growing block chain

Roaming/Bitcoin is 1.42GB now.

Yes it keep growing but pruning it should be possible

I remember reading that there's existing solutions to this, either by pruning off the old merkle root stuff for old transactions and so. And there's the light clients designed to run on the cloud  ;D
p.s.: it's 11 here and I'm drowsy, so forgive me for any errors

Pruning could be possible, but in that case we would not be able to "verify" (i.e. track back) every account's balance, thus "problems" might arise. Then again, I'm thinking if it would be possible for some nodes to hold the whole chain (for tracking reasons) and the rest of the network just keep a year's or two years' transactions.

the blockchain and the location of blockchain look like shit...