Bitcoin is being crushed by its own weight

[odolvlobo]

I reinstalled the Bitcoin wallet today and it took several hours to download the block chain. Most of that time was spent on just the last 30 days of transactions. It is a very poor user experience, and certainly something that a novice will not tolerate. Even worse, if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

What is the plan?

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[squid]

Online wallets alleviate this issue since there is no need to catch up with the blockchain making it a new user friendly approach. However, users who don't trust anyone can still maintain their wallets themselves.

Feels like this is sort of a non-issue to me.

[vuce]

There are several lightweight bitcoin clients (electrum,multibit) one can choose from. Maybe it's time the original clients stops being (so heavily) promoted on bitcoin.org.

[kangasbros]

Yep, promoting the original client is definitely a turn-off for newbie users. Lightweight clients are the way to go. More experienced users can run the full client if they want to.

[DeathAndTaxes]

if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

Do you realize how stupid this sounds? 

[AndrewBUD]

Sure it's slow... I have tons of Tx's on my wallet and it takes days to download the thing from scratch...

[DutchBrat]

Aren't the Devs working on a new and improved database implementation.... Which will solve most of this problem....

[fcmatt]

if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

Do you realize how stupid this sounds? 

I think he was thinking of the day that there are so many transactions that one might have to download a gig a day or something to keep up. Or if you shutdown the client, open it up 25 days later you will need to wait many hours to see your coins sent to you the day before. Or you only have dialup access and it literally cannot keep up....

[Domrada]

if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

Do you realize how stupid this sounds? 

I wouldn't call it stupid, just uninformed.  Not everyone understands fully how the network works.  It's an opportunity for a teachable moment.

But I have to admit, the size of the blockchain and the lack of a plan for how to deal with it makes me nervous too.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Developers have indicated there IS a plan.  
The combination of:
a) new DB structure
b) removing the double verification
d) pruned DB
d) better memory management
e) multi-threaded block verification

have the potential to improve throughput by a magnitude or more (i.e 10x faster blockchain verification).  It isn't going to happen overnight though.  There are no bitcoin offices in Santa Clara with 20,000 salaried bitcoin employees working 40 hours a week of improving the client.

Longer term even those improvements will be insufficient.  If Bitcoin becomes very large (which we all should hope it does) the demands on full nodes will increase exponentially.  This doesn't mean developers shouldn't work on solutions but those solutions likely will only keep pace with tx growth.  If a future client can process 100x as many tx per second but network volume is 200x higher then the node will be "slower".  The reality is full nodes are ill-suited for noob or casual users.  Period.  As time goes on that will become more and more obvious.

For those who spend nights awaking worrying about it how much time, resources, or even bitcoins have you donated to the development of better clients?

[DublinBrian]

The reality is full nodes are ill-suited for noob or casual users.  Period. 

I agree. But the trouble is Bitcoin.org home page doesnt say that. In fact it encourages the download and installation of the full client, by noobs.

[odolvlobo]

if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

Do you realize how stupid this sounds?  

I wouldn't call it stupid, just uninformed.  Not everyone understands fully how the network works.  It's an opportunity for a teachable moment.

But I have to admit, the size of the blockchain and the lack of a plan for how to deal with it makes me nervous too.

I'm willing to admit that I don't know the details.

I noticed that downloading the last 10% of the block chain (the last 30 or so days) took about 75% of the time. Doesn't this indicate an exponential growth of the size of the block chain, or at least the amount of work needed to process it? And if it continues growing like this, won't the wallet eventually be unable to keep up? Please inform me.

[odolvlobo]

The reality is full nodes are ill-suited for noob or casual users.  Period.  As time goes on that will become more and more obvious.

That was part of the observation in my original post. Unfortunately, that it the same as saying that "cash" is ill-suited for the casual user. In order for a typical person to use bitcoin, it will have to be stored in an "account" on some server and not under the direct control of the person.

On the other hand, I guess that this is becoming less of an issue as we continue to move toward a cash-less society anyway.

[DeathAndTaxes]

That was part of the observation in my original post. Unfortunately, that it the same as saying that "cash" is ill-suited for the casual user. In order for a typical person to use bitcoin, it will have to be stored in an "account" on some server and not under the direct control of the person.

No the typical casual user will use a lite node.  Also I would point out that in e-wallets like blockchain.info your private keys ARE under your direct control.  Blockchain.info only handles the higher level processing (validating tx, calculating balances, submitting tx to the network, parsing blocks for incoming tx, etc).

I noticed that downloading the last 10% of the block chain (the last 30 or so days) took about 75% of the time. Doesn't this indicate an exponential growth of the size of the block chain, or at least the amount of work needed to process it? And if it continues growing like this, won't the wallet eventually be unable to keep up? Please inform me.

If the human race keeps doubling every 15 years then in a thousand or so years every square inch of our planet will be covered with humans.  Assuming exponential growth will continue is flawed. 

[Lumpy]

In order for a typical person to use bitcoin, it will have to be stored in an "account" on some server and not under the direct control of the person.

Not entirely true. Electrum, for example, stores your private keys on your own computer and they never touch the 3rd-party server. Even if you lose your internet access completely, you still have the keys and can easily list them. Although I haven't used it myself, I've heard Blockchain.info's wallet service works in a similar manner.

MultiBit lets you get up and running nearly instantly if you are starting a new wallet and doesn't rely on an external server. There are Android wallets using BitcoinJ that work the same.

It probably depends on your system, but on my computer with a good internet connection and a SSD drive, it takes less than 24 hours to download the full blockchain. How long does it take someone to open a bank account, get it set up, and start using it? The time spent installing Bitcoin is < 5 minutes and the rest is just waiting.

I know the developers are working on solutions, so I'm not discounting the need for them. Maybe a small note on the download page that downloading the full client/blockchain takes time would suffice.

[Lumpy]

Quoting from the author of MultiBit:

How difficult is bitcoin to use really ?

Say I want to set up a friend to use MultiBit on a Windows machine, send them some BTC and get them to spend it online.

Let's start with a piping hot cup of coffee that is still too hot for us to drink.

Setup
1) They download an installer from multibit.org's main page, double click it and then it is click-click-click and accept the licence. Done in a couple of minutes.
2) They double click the MultiBit icon. There is a wallet all made for them. Fast catchup ensures they are synced to the network in less than a minute.
3) The first time MultiBit is opened they get a friendly welcome screen.

Get some bitcoin
1) To request some BTC, click on the Request tab. Let's press the Zoom button so that their onscreen QR code fills the screen. This makes it easier for me to zap it with my smartphone.
2) I zap the QR code and then send them some BTC from my phone's bitcoin app.
3) They receive it in a few seconds. I will then explain to them about confirmations and show them the Transactions help with the confirmation icons.

Our coffee has now cooled down enough for us to enjoy at a perfect temperature whilst we wait for the first confirmation.

Spending
1) Say they want to give multibit.org a donation.
2) Go to multibit.org. Click on the donate link or QR code (bottom right).
3) In MultiBit: accept the payment request. Press Send. Confirm the Send.


When encrypted wallets come in, they will have to do 'File | Add Password' and follow a short screen of instructions to encrypt their wallet(s). Then on a Send they must enter the wallet's password.

It is no more difficult to use than online banking.

[kwukduck]

if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

Do you realize how stupid this sounds? 

Is it really that stupid? When the users in the network do more transactions then the miners can take in to process, stuff must get really laggy i guess?

[Lumpy]

if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

Do you realize how stupid this sounds? 

Is it really that stupid? When the users in the network do more transactions then the miners can take in to process, stuff must get really laggy i guess?

Peg a real number on how many transactions that would have to be and then it will be easier to evaluate whether it is a threat or not and how long it would take to get there.

[sadpandatech]

I reinstalled the Bitcoin wallet today and it took several hours to download the block chain. Most of that time was spent on just the last 30 days of transactions. It is a very poor user experience, and certainly something that a novice will not tolerate. Even worse, if the growth of the block chain continues like this, wallets will eventually be unable to keep up -- even in real-time.

What is the plan?

Several hours is a HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE improvement and not the first one that has been made to the time needed to acquire the entire blockchain.  There will be more improvements.

[FreeMoney]

It is amazing that we can still get the chain in a few hours. This probably won't always be the case, enjoy it now. You can easily download every bitcoin transaction ever, wow. Later (aka now) maybe we'll share databases, that'll still be awesome.