Bitcoin Forum

I have a bitcoin core wallet which says it is 1 year 49 weeks behind, how long on a I7 3.8ghz 64bit quad core until it is no longer behind?

I figured it would have to catch up until it finally finds the deposit I made into the wallet in that app?

with good cpu and internet connection whole sync takes few hours

It is also worth noting that how many peer connections you have is a variable. If you are using this on a home network then you may not see more than 8 peers. But it is going to take a while. X Days? Once it has synced you will miss the blockchain download. It really does almost nothing you can see after that. lol

It will take a while to download. With my i7 and 100Meg internet it still takes me about a day and half to download bitcoin data doing it from scratch, which if I remember is about 340 days I think.

With it being that far behind, it would almost certainly be faster to delete the blocks and chainstate directories and start from scratch with a bootstrap file.

(Bootstrap info is here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0); latest available bootstrap torrent is Armory's, and a link to it can be found here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoinarmory-media/announce.txt (https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoinarmory-media/announce.txt))

Its better to keep your coins that dont dowload the whole blockchain you missed.

Leave it over the night and It should sync.

If you're installing Bitcoin Core for the very first time, it takes about 6-8 hours for the entire blockchain with decent CPU and fast, stable internet.

Like others are saying, install it at night, let it sync, and when you wake up and check on it it should be fully downloaded and synced.

It can take days...I installed bitcoin-q from scratch on a new computer 2 weeks ago and it took over a week. once it is synched your transactions should show up, although doing this makes me uncomfortable (OCD)

If you do not have bitcoin core set up and synched, and you absolutely must do a transaction right away, try something like multibit. It does not need the whole core synched to work. there are torrents that have the core all downloaded and ready to go, but I do not have the necessary skills to determine if they are corrupt or not. could be full of malwares  :-[

tl;dr my advice; be patient, if you cant, get multibit.

good luck catching up with the block chain lol.

I've had experiences go both ways, using the same PC and ISP. Part of the problem is that blocks are only downloaded from a single peer, and connecting to a peer with a good (or poor) upload capacity is pretty much a matter of luck. (There are plans to improve on this.)


No arguments with respect to MultiBit, but you don't have anything to worry about when it comes to downloading a bootstrap.dat file (it's just a data file, not something you "install"). For more details on why it's safe, take a look at the thread I mentioned earlier (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0).

Good CPU, not so emphatic about the peers I'm connecting to. Since then it's only at 1 year 18 weeks, does that mean it will be a few days until it catches up and my Btc in my wallet show up?

The bottleneck when syncing is almost never your CPU. An old single core 1 GHz CPU cant handle the load, but most modern CPUs are perfectly fine with it. Even the network connection is not the problem in most cases. Because you only sync with a single node, this specific connection is your bottleneck. To improve the chance of a "good" node use addnode IP add to add some nodes to your peers list and restart bitcoin core if the speed breaks down (see the build in network monitor).

List of IPs:


more in the wiki [1] but that list is pretty old.


[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Fallback_Nodes

Using the bootstrap torrent will make the blockchain download much faster, but then the indexing process will still take hours to complete. It is something you need to consider for choosing the bitcoin core.

Hmm, I've installed it twice in the past year, it never took me days.

Maybe it's your provider or connection related.

Does this go in "third party transaction urls"? or is there somewhere else I'm missing in bitcoin core?

Nope either you use the config file [1] and add lines in the addnode section (dont forget to remove #) or you go
help -> debug window -> console and enter addnode IP add for each of the IPs. You can check with getpeerinfo with which node you are currently syncing (look for syncnode: true


[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin#Bitcoin.conf_Configuration_File

Don't use bitcoin core, use Multibit instead, a lot faster

Thanks for your help! I'm going to try to add the nodes in a few minutes. It's down to 1 year from 1 year 40 weeks so I may just give it a few days to complete the blockchain.


Unfortunately I just picked a popular bitcoin wallet, I had used a more responsive one before, and an online wallet as well which used custom passphrases in .jpegs, I was trying to withdraw it to a bitcoin address so I could make a payment to someone, unfortunately it wasn't working so I figured I'd send it to myself first, I just remember the first wallet I had updated the blockchain in an hour instead of days. I'm running a  fairly fast I7 quad core, so the bottleneck is probably the internet, but that is a 6mbit connection, so it's probably the nodes I'm connected to.

I was under the impression that since I already sent it to a particular bitcoin wallet number that I couldn't easily transfer it until the blockchain is complete and it shows a positive balance. The quantity was only 4o bucks worth, it's my fault for being a bit ignorant about the blockchain download process. I'm pretty technically savvy so I'll try and add the nodes.

I don't particularly need the money right away so I may just buy another 40$ in btc and then use multi-bit since I'm probably out of luck until it syncs, is this the correct assumption? I really should have consulted here first. I'm going to download multi-bit and check  it out. Thanks for everyones suggestions, you all have been most helpful!

This is the text in my bitcoin conf file, the sample config file in the wiki link is HUGE, mine contains this:


What is the code that needs to be added after the password? I'm sorry for being ignorant of this, I just don't want to corrupt the blockchain I've downloaded so far!

The 'chainstate' folder and the 'blocks' folder in my App Data->Roaming->Bitcoin folder are at 12GB so it's got a fair amount of data since I posted. What is the total size of the blockchain? I may have to start moving stuff off of the C: drive it's loading to as I've only got 15GB or so left!

Just import the private key to blockchain.info or multibit spend what you want to spend and then when the client has updated generate a new address and sent the funds there!

No worries, your bitcoin is absolutely safe while the syncing is still going on.
If you need to spend the bitcoin now, you can either export the private keys to Multibit and Electrum, or upload your wallet file to blockchain.info to create a new wallet.

Is my private key the second number listed in the config file, "rpcpassword?" Bitcoin core seems to have less functionality or intuitive design than multi-bit! I just should've asked first what was best!

There is no .key file in App Data->Roaming-Bitcoin. You can only export a receiving address in bitcoin core in comma separated variable format. No I don't need the BTC now - it's down to 50 weeks (1 week every 1-2 hours) so should I just wait until it's done, probably 2 day or so? After that I'll move the coins to multi bit and chill on it.  ;D Thanks for everyone's kindness and guidance!!

Edit: Why the hell does bitcoin core take forever, when multibit already says "online," it took like 15 minutes saying synchronizing then bam. Does it just not download the entire blockchain? How is that possible? What is the advantage of having the full one?

No.

Click "help", "debug window", "console" and enter walletpassphrase <your walletpassphrase> 60 to unlock your wallet for 60 seconds.
Enter dumpprivkey <your address> to show the private key of that address.
Please never ever post your private keys here or show them to anyone, as your bitcoin could be gone in seconds.


Exactly. For bitcoin core, you are downloading the whole blockchain which is about 26GB on my pc now.
For Electrum, you just need about 25 MB. I am not using Multibit, but I assume it is pretty much the same.

For the disadvantage of thin clients, please refer to https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Thin_Client_Security :)

All the clients for BTC that are not made by BTC developers are wallets for change! Money that you will immediately use!

Never keep your full stash of BTC in there! Always keep them encrypted in the core client ;)

Nothing personal, but a wide-sweeping statement like this is completely inaccurate.

There are a number of (hot-storage) wallets which are nearly as or more secure than the Bitcoin Core client, and offer important features lacking in Bitcoin Core (not to mention cold-storage solutions and hardware wallets, which are considerably more secure for BTC funds).

It's better to not trust anyone in my opinion

And there are safe ways to use Core client, you just need to install it on a brand new machine witch has anti-virus and firewall on, generate an address print the private key and then just transfer the funds and then format several times that hard drive

In my opinion this is the only method to do a paper wallet!

All the options that tell you to have a machine that wasn't on the internet and you generate the private key off line are somewhere at 98% reliable!

Why? Because you never know what the hell you installed :)

Nope the rpc stuff is there so armory can use bitcoind.


The file should be named wallet.dat and will have all private keys among other information.


Multibit does not download the blockchain but queries it on the fly. Its not a "full node" like bitcoin core is, but relies on other full nodes to provide information if needed. These so called "slim" or "lite"/"light" etc. clients are still safe, they just work differently and need no copy of the blockchain.



If you dont trust anyone, why trust the core devs?


How do you know with bitcoin core?

Thanks for the help! I see the file, but I'm still unsure how to use the import wallet functionality of multibit, but that's ok I'm not going to try in do it. I must have connected to a faster node because it took forever to do the first 51 weeks (from 2 years 51 weeks) but it's zipped through the last year quickly, I believe there are only 6 or so days left to update, 26+GB so far!

So good security would be to send the money to a multibit wallet and then password protecting it with upper and lower case numbers and symbols? I'm not all too worried about it as it is a fairly small amount of money (40 bucks or so) and I don't intend to have much more, but I am curious. Since multibit is on the fly does it take longer to update new transactions or the same as a fully synchronized bitcoin core? Honestly I rather not store 25GB+ of blockchain and multibit seems to have a consensus that it's a good BTC client.

I'm really anxious for the 6 days to complete so  I can tell whether I sent it to the correct address or not! I have one entry in the requested payments so I'm pretty sure I sent it to that single wallet.

Yes its best to just send your own coins to your new multibit wallet via the blockchain. Nothing to mess up that way. Just make sure the coins arrived before deleting the old files. Multibit has no local copy of the blockchain, but just asks others running bitcoin core for data when needed. Its synced in a matter of seconds that way. You might want to wait a little longer since Multibit HD [1] is in the late testing stages AFAIK. HD wallets allow you to make a single backup and every new address/key pair you generate will be covered by that backup.



Just check the balance of the address with one of the common blockchain explorers, like www.blockchain.info, www.blocktrail.com, btc.blockr.io etc. I thought you allready did that...

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=305134.0

Appreciate the help! It started syncing faster after it got down to a year, WAY faster. Turns out I did transfer it correctly. I'd be more concerned about the beta status of multibit if I was managing a business accepting BTC or used it often or used large sums. I've got 40$ so I'll risk it, I just want to get rid of 26GB+ of blockchain! Luckily I just found my 2TB drive I bought, but it's not installed yet! :)

Quick question: I typed my balance into google (currency conversion) and it pulled up some site indexing the blockchain, does this blockchain contain the private IP address of every transaction ever made with bitcoin? The ip address listed with the quantity was not my IP address (it wasn't even a US address) so I don't think it has anything to do with me, it just got me asking questions. I know BTC is a cryptocurrency, but this is in reference to how it authenticates the transactions as legitimate, and nothing to do with securing your transactions from prying eyes correct? I'm right in assuming bitcoin is in no way private?

I know bitcoin has many legitimate uses but it also is notoriously connected to some less than legal transactions, are people not somehow permanently linking themselves to such transactions? I'm not using btc for this purpose so I'm not particularly concerned but I know people online who do. Is this mitigated by the constant generation of different wallet addresses? Is any personally identifiable information inextricably linking two parties generated every transaction?

It's hard to wrap my mind around, BTC/cryptocurrency is such a novel thing. It's hard to imagine if your dollar bill had a log file attached with the fingerprint of every person who ever held it! Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding what I was looking at

Edit: https://blockchain.info/ was the site, however if I type my public IP it doesn't list anything, nor does typing my ip address and bitcoin or any transaction amounts into google. What exactly does an IP address "relaying a transaction" mean? Is this every transaction moving through the network or do particular nodes relay transactions? I've read fairly thoroughly about the underlying method that btc uses and it still somewhat bewilders me. What is this relay business? It's surprising to see 30,000$ transactions flying through! What are people buying cars in btc? lol I guess I never realized how extensively and in what large quantities btc is traded and spent. Edit2: man 100,000$ transactions! Are these single transactions? It says something like:


Why are there 5 figure outputs and inputs when 28 bucks is what is transacted?

When I click on the link (https://blockchain.info/tx/f465928eeaeef0ac88cf35d036f46d8fe23a05f320c4290c8e4024b4ecceda15) there's a whole list of large figures broken down from that 100k figure, yet only one of them is the 28$ one.


One other thing, a quick look shows transaction fees spike when market capitalization plunges - is this people dumping btc so more transactions are carried out? Also when it lists transactions fees (.04$ by default, right? but you can make it higher for quicker transactions or something?) so the daily transaction fees/.04$ gives you the bare minimum of transactions?

Its not that Multibit is beta or in a test phase, its just that there will be a new version of Multibit (HD) soon and they are not compatible. Multibit is still a good wallet.


Google probably asks blockchain.info and no the blockchain (not the same as the site) does not safe IP addresses. Even the IP addresses on blockchain.info are not from the person that initialy send the Transaction (TX). Which is almost impossible to detect anyway, since you are usually connected to 8 peers and none of them knows that the TX is from you. Your bitcoin core is constantly relaying transactions for others through the network. Your TX is indistinguishable from TX by others.


Its just the IP that relayed the TX to blockchain.info first, which is basically a random node. Every transaction is public, that is correct. On the other hand almost noone knows who a certain address belongs to. Thats why Bitcoin is called pseudonymus not anonymus. Similar to Mail addresses. I can send a mail to xyz@whatever.com and I know it will allways usually end up with the same person, but I have no idea who that person actually is unless I get these information from other sources. Mail however is usually used in a different way and people write their names at the end.


To generate a new address for each time you receive bitcoins has a different reason IMHO. It makes it harder for someone else to know how much bitcoin I own. E.g. I have a bitcoin address I give to someone. That someone can check the balance on any blockchain explorer and thus known how much bitcoin I currently own and how much I owned in the past. When I just make a new one, the person knows nothing about my wealth.

Addresses can get linked. E.g. when you spend bitcoin from address A and B and C at the same time in a single transaction it is usually assumed that these addresses are controlled by the same person.

A Transaction contains very little information [1] none I would consider personal. Its basically just a list of inputs (former transactions you recieved) and outputs (spendable by someone else or yourself once confirmed).


Yes. Its similar to a bill, but there are no fingerprints and the persoin receiving the bill does not see your face. ;)
On the other hand bitcoin works completly different. In a sense each transaction takes the inputs, destroys them and makes new outputs. Like lumps of gold. You put them all in a pot (inputs) and melt them (creating the TX), from the molten gold you make new lumps (outputs) and give them to someone else or even yourself. Its just that noone can see a difference if you send a TX to me or to yourself. Unless you would use the address in my profile, but thats my fault for putting it there ;)


See above, I answered while reading. (there is also a bit more about it below ;) )


Blockchain.info and other blockchain explorers should have all transactions known to the network. Every full node (like blockchain core) relays transactions to get them known by "everyone". If you make one with multibit you give them to a set of full nodes that do this for you.


Its the way the transactions get to the miners. They spread through the network allmost instantly. You can make a test the next time you make a TX, wait before the last click to send it, open blockchain.info and see how long it takes. Usually its only a few seconds.


I think I read somewhere that people even buy houses with BTC.


Nice one. Very big TX. On the left side are the inputs and on the right side are the outputs. This means either that all the addresses on the left are from the same person or that its a "shared coin" transaction. Its a method that helps to further obfuscate which TX come from which person.

The way a TX works every input has to be spend entirely. I never really understood what bc.i says with "Estimated BTC Transacted". The TX transfers >135 BTC from a set of inputs to a set of newly generated outputs. If you click on "Scripts & coinbase" you can even see which outputs are allready spend.


Usual fees are 0.0001 per KByte. The size (in byte) of the TX depends on the amount of inputs and outputs. It makes no sense to pay an extra fee except in bordercases. If you pay the proper fee your TX will be confirmed with the next block. Just because you pay double does not make the miners mine the next block faster. They mine as fast as they can allready and mining is esentially random. You cant say in advance when you will find a block. If the price is low/falling people tend to move more coins around because they panic sell or buy for cheaps.


[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction

Now that is a good answer! I really appreciate you taking the time to break that down!

Geeze, that really was one person moving around 100k in bitcoin. Someone should write a script which takes the ip address of large transactions and compares them against IP blocks registered to companies :) It'd be interesting (I don't have the skillz). Maybe someone could repurpose that wikipedia script which did the same with wiki edits! I would be interested to see if Chase or Bank of America are moving are btc in large quantities! Surely they'd know enough to obscure their identity if they did. I mean you can probably connect to the btc network through a tor protocol or at least a proxy server. But companies didn't take the time to use a different ip block for their wiki edits either.

And the person was paying just a few cents as fees lol. :D

BTW, bitcoin users are able to connect to the bitcoin network through Tor and so it won't be a simple task to find out the actual IP addresses of the address owners (the IPs you saw on the transaction page on blockchain.info aren't necessarily the IPs of the senders)

Yes, as I wrote earlier it is impossible to distinguish your TX from mine or anyone elses. The TX itself does not include the IP. So in order to tie your IP to a certain transaction or address I would have to controll every node you are connected to and track every transaction that comes in and every transaction that comes out.