[ANN] Bitcoin blockchain data torrent

[takagari]

It's to bad this is considered a public torrent, My Seed box won't allow me to seed it

I'm trying to figure out where the damn file goes though lol

[Patel]

How can you create your own bootstrap.dat with the latest block?

[deepceleron]

How can you create your own bootstrap.dat with the latest block?

Just look at the previous page of posts for linearize or pynode references.

[kashish948]

how much time does it take to "import from disk"?

[Subo1977]

a Tracker e.e. tracker.bitcoin.org would be good or a magnetlink on sourceforge

[Subo1977]

can an Admin put an actual bootstrap.dat.torrent on SFG ? the version there is from 08/2013. my Client say 41% after import and need to download 59 % from network.

many thanks

[Sukrim]

I guess you mean "more current", not "actual"?

Anyways, the latest check point in bitcoin's source code is from block 250000, this is what this torrent contains. If you want a more recent checkpoint, feel free to create a pull request with a more recent hash, I guess we could have an updated torrent then as well.

I don't know how soon 0.9 will be released, most likely it will contain a more recent check point and this topic will be updated.

[DeboraMeeks]

Still it doesn't import all the blockchain and need a day or more to get it fully updated. Isn't there a way to add an automatically updating torrent (or a program uploading a new one every few days).

[Sukrim]

There could be an RSS feed, usually torrent clients assume that a new item there is a completely new file though, so it would not build upon existing data and lead to a lot of redundant downloads between seeders over time. Also a concern is that there might not be enough seeders anyways, if the file changes every few days (though that's not really a concern with RSS feeds...). Also verifiability of the file might be a bit more difficult, this one is quite proven compared to something that changes often.

I guess with recent improvements (header first sync) a lot of downloading issues of the client will anyways be gone, so I'm unsure if it would pay off to invest time into a better solution for bootstrap.dat files instead of just waiting for the next bitcoin-qt release that has the potential of coming up to sync very fast anyways.

[shields]

Just a thought off the top of my head... thinking of an advanced bittorrent protocol where the torrent content data can be dynamically updated. For example the original publisher of the torrent could change the contents, and any clients seeding would recognise the changes, download them and continue seeding. The original uploader could prove their identity by having a unique private key for the torrent and sign a message with the changes.

Something like this would allow something like this bitcoin torrent to be regularly updated without requiring switching from an old torrent to a new one.

Does anything like this already exist?

[Sukrim]

Prorietary yes, check out btsync.

Bittorrent inc acts like huge jerks regarding open source development on that one though.

Otherwise bittorrent is really intended for static files, just imagine first offering a popular file and then switching it out for something illegal or something containing a backdoor or virus as soon as it gained traction.

It might be worth the time and hassle to decompile btsync and document their inner workings, to implement a open source version of it or something similar. After all it is mostly a way to share info hashes with certain nodes on the dht as far as I get it.

[jgarzik]

a Tracker e.e. tracker.bitcoin.org would be good or a magnetlink on sourceforge

can an Admin put an actual bootstrap.dat.torrent on SFG ? the version there is from 08/2013. my Client say 41% after import and need to download 59 % from network.

The latest torrent file is always available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/blockchain/

We don't want to run a tracker ourselves..  that introduces a centralize, single point of failure.

[e4xit]

Just a thought off the top of my head... thinking of an advanced bittorrent protocol where the torrent content data can be dynamically updated. For example the original publisher of the torrent could change the contents, and any clients seeding would recognise the changes, download them and continue seeding. The original uploader could prove their identity by having a unique private key for the torrent and sign a message with the changes.

Something like this would allow something like this bitcoin torrent to be regularly updated without requiring switching from an old torrent to a new one.

Does anything like this already exist?

This already happens with torrents, at least this torrent... When a new download for this torrent becomes available, simply choose to download to the location you still have your old "bootstrap.dat" file, you torrent client will 'verify' the first 'x'% of the data, up until the point new data is found. Then continue the download from there.

I have done this myself and can verify that it works.

This might only be applicable to certain data formats, for example the blockchain is extremely sequential, and data is only ever appended to the end of the file (AFAIK). But I do not know much about this an am open to correction on this matter from those who do.

Note: If you have used bootstrap.dat to import block data before it will be renamed to "bootstrap.dat.old" (or something similar). If you want to perform this little 'trick', make sure it has the name "bootstrap.dat" (the same as the torrent). Would also be prudent to ensure you have bitcoind/QT shutdown while you do this, in case it start trying to import while you download or whatever.

Just pointed my NL-hosted seedbox to this torrent so should have some more fast uploaders now anyway...

[kavin2468]

I know that bitcoin has been growing a lot but mine loaded about 20-25% of the blocks with my bootstrap.dat and then stopped to switch to "synchronizing with network." Soonafter my bootstrap file was renamed to .old so I figured it was done...that bootstrap is about a half a year old, has 75% of the bitcoin trading really been in the last 6 months???

[Subo1977]

1000+Mbit/s FR SeedBox added

[Subo1977]

i would  make a actual bootstrap.dat and post the torrent link here.

Interrested?

[Sukrim]

I would not trust your and/or seed this file, also there are already a number of sites where you can download a more recent copy of the block chain anyways.

But I do not know much about this an am open to correction on this matter from those who do.

As I said, to do this automatically, yuo need to use Bittorrent Sync, which uses BT technology but is currently closed source and in heavy development.

[Subo1977]

I would not trust your and/or seed this file, also there are already a number of sites where you can download a more recent copy of the block chain anyways.

But I do not know much about this an am open to correction on this matter from those who do.

As I said, to do this automatically, yuo need to use Bittorrent Sync, which uses BT technology but is currently closed source and in heavy development.

you didnt need to trust because  bitcoind/bitcoinqt would trust them or not... , so he would trust downloaded blocks......

anyone who trust the the bitcoinsystem can download the bootstrap.dat ( up to block 279000) from the magnetlink here:

magnet:?xt=urn:btih:F01BD4AD9255447678C1C90D4FADF1BE0E8F53A4&dn=bootstrap.dat&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3a80%2fannounce&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.publicbt.com%3a80%2fannounce&tr=udp%3a%2f%2ftracker.ccc.de%3a80%2fannounce

[Sukrim]

IF there is actual bitcoin data in there, yes. Unless jgarzik finally gets around to extending the python script to deterministically also create torrent infohashes from blockchain data, I'd rather take no chances though.

[deepceleron]

IF there is actual bitcoin data in there, yes. Unless jgarzik finally gets around to extending the python script to deterministically also create torrent infohashes from blockchain data, I'd rather take no chances though.

Please publish the SHA256 & MD5 of the final bootstrap.dat file that you created to 279000. I will be able to tell you if it can be independently created by others with identical data. I can recreate jgarzik's from network-downloaded blocks.

Blockchain data is fully signature-checked for all blocks since the last code checkpoint. This means that CPU, and not network bandwidth, is usually the limiting factor processing blocks 250,000 and on. It is not really beneficial to download more data before getting the Bitcoin CPU work started, which is why the torrent corresponds with the checkpoint.