[2016-09-17] Does the Original Bitcoin Wallet Still Matter?

[hendra147]

When it comes to user experience, the longest-running bitcoin wallet is hardly an iPhone 7.

To use Bitcoin Core, users need to download a copy of the entire transaction history of the digital currency, a process that can take days and this is only becoming more burdensome as bitcoin's transaction history increases.

This means that unlike other, flashier, VC-funded consumer wallets (think Coinbase or Circle) or open-source efforts like Mycelium, Bitcoin Core doesn’t fit on a smartphone, but it's still used for essentially the same functions – sending and receiving bitcoins.

http://www.coindesk.com/original-bitcoin-wallet-still-matter/

[Carlton Banks]

For Coindesk to even ask this question, they must be either stupid or trolling the Bitcoin Core team (again).

And as for "doesn't fit on a smartphone", again, either they're stupid, or trolling. Modern phones have the storage and the bandwidth needed to handle Core, but possibly the processing power is still not ready. And if Coindesk knew anything about the topic, they'd also know that Core can prune the blockchain down to about 2GB.


The simple fact is, that the Core developers are the most important part of the ecosystem, producing the majority of the innovation in the development space. It's not as simple as just being a wallet, Core is the software that literally makes the Bitcoin network tick. So this Coindesk headline is essentially a casual attempt at hurting Bitcoin. As can be expected from Coindesk.

[fancy_pants]

I've got bitcoin core running on an ubuntu touch bq aquaris smartphone.  It's badass and it's relevant.   I use the prune flag, so it's not that big.   

I can do terminal commands, but I'd like to set up a gui and point it to the bitcoin rpc interface. (localhost or GTFO)   Anyone here know about a webui that I can set up to do this sort of thing?

Best case, I'd like to find an npm (node.js) based web gui that I can convert into an installable click file application using cordova.

[Carlton Banks]

I've got bitcoin core running on an ubuntu touch bq aquaris smartphone.  It's badass and it's relevant.   I use the prune flag, so it's not that big.   

Ha! So you've proved it's possible.

But how cumbersome is the experience? How long did the intial sync take? What libraries did you need? What source code mods did you make?

[Kprawn]

For Coindesk to even ask this question, they must be either stupid or trolling the Bitcoin Core team (again).

And as for "doesn't fit on a smartphone", again, either they're stupid, or trolling. Modern phones have the storage and the bandwidth needed to handle Core, but possibly the processing power is still not ready. And if Coindesk knew anything about the topic, they'd also know that Core can prune the blockchain down to about 2GB.


The simple fact is, that the Core developers are the most important part of the ecosystem, producing the majority of the innovation in the development space. It's not as simple as just being a wallet, Core is the software that literally makes the Bitcoin network tick. So this Coindesk headline is essentially a casual attempt at hurting Bitcoin. As can be expected from Coindesk.

Carlton, Why are the Coindesk so against the Bitcoin Core developers? If they get someone else to take over, they will still have the same

problems, they discussing here in this article. This big block VS small block debate and stabbing at each other are getting old now. I have

64 GB memory on my Smart phone and I can gladly handle a pruned 2GB Blockchain without any hassles. 

[Carlton Banks]

Because they're indirectly questioning the relevance of Bitcoin Core (and judging by their previous output, will continue to try and chip away at Core using any angle they can). They're acting as a political tool, not as the news source they present themselves as. That's dangerous stuff, although I think most people these days are beginning to realise how much of a propaganda risk they run when going to self-styled "news" outlets to get reliable information.

And who said anything about blocks except you? You still haven't figured out that the blocksize debate was a trojan horse for controlling the Bitcoin source code, huh?

[fancy_pants]

I've got bitcoin core running on an ubuntu touch bq aquaris smartphone.  It's badass and it's relevant.   I use the prune flag, so it's not that big.   

Ha! So you've proved it's possible.

But how cumbersome is the experience? How long did the intial sync take? What libraries did you need? What source code mods did you make?

The install was pretty rough, but hugely rewarding and I'm no longer menaced by the feeling that coinbase or blockchain or xxx is selling my data augmented transaction history to all the bidders they can find.

In a nutshell:
- Set the phone to disk image writable (kills the manufacturer app store, so app store updates from this point forward must come from https://launchpad.net/openstore)
- apt-get install bitcoin (with all the usual repo related steps)
- copy the .bitcoin directory from somewhere else. (I'm such a nice guy that I'll probably return here wiith an ipfs link to a current .bitcoin sooner or later)

The initial sync on a $200 no plan bq cell phone can take a month if you don't copy over a .bitcoin directory from elsewhere.  If you do copy, then it's about 11 minutes for the copy. 

[Carlton Banks]

The initial sync on a $200 no plan bq cell phone can take a month if you don't copy over a .bitcoin directory from elsewhere.  If you do copy, then it's about 11 minutes for the copy. 

Ahhh, smart sidestepping. You entirely avoided all the transaction verification that way (copying pre-verified chain from a x86 machine). Was the chain already pruned on the original PC also?