I've read somewhere in 4 years the blockchain will be 700GB

[Shinseiten]

hardware capacity will increase ok, but what if people need to put the full node online 24h\24h because they have web services and things like this?
It would be impossible!
I want to open a full node now (not for mining but for developing) and I can't because it's too big!

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[Liad.Services]

I remember reading this here the other day I think, and it was at a 1MB blocksize rate.... I would guess that in 4 years maybe the blockchain has been increased, at least doubled.

Anyway, let's imagine it doesnt, and we stay at 1MB.... what do you think the price for 700GB will be in 4 years? If things don't change much, it means running a node will take almost an entire HD (let's say the usual HD size is 1TB).

What happens once the size goes beyond 1TB, or beyond the biggest HD? what happens when you can't fit the blocksize in a regular HDs? Can you run 3/4 of the blockchain then the remaining 1/4 part in another HD?

There is no reason for the core developers to do that.
700gb is x700000 then the current block size, even if the whole world are going to use bitcoins at a daily basis we won't need such a block size.

Anyway, such a block size would hurt the community, as machines who stores the whole blockchain will need to have a massive built-in memory, which is almost impossible, and will make running a node alot harder and much more expensive then it used to be.

[cr1776]

hardware capacity will increase ok, but what if people need to put the full node online 24h\24h because they have web services and things like this?
It would be impossible!
I want to open a full node now (not for mining but for developing) and I can't because it's too big!

There are thousands of full nodes, so clearly it is not "impossible".   There are many, many places you can launch a full node on a VPS or colo hardware for a full node.

[Barbut]

Do you remember floppy disks, size was 1.44 mb. I bought 1tb external hard disk two years ago, and now there is even bigger hard disks. So what we are talking about, digits goes up each year? And everything is happening very fast.
Welcome to technology era, new things are invented, old are upgraded, and upgrades are upgraded. Things will be alright, this will never happen, they are arguing now about block size, to increase it to 700 MB in 4 years is impossible. Where ever you read this guy who wrote it doesn't know nothing about bitcoins.

[Lauda]

I want to open a full node now (not for mining but for developing) and I can't because it's too big!

You don't have 100 GB of storage? Otherwise, I don't see why you can't. Optionally you could run a pruned node.

700gb is x700000 then the current block size, even if the whole world are going to use bitcoins at a daily basis we won't need such a block size.

No, you don't understand what is being talked about here. They are not talking about 700 GB blocks, but the blockchain size growing towards 700 GB (currently ~100GB).

-snip-

Obvious spam post. You have clearly read nothing and just wrote up some nonsense that you think is relevant when in fact it is not.

[wshaman]

What happens once the size goes beyond 1TB, or beyond the biggest HD? what happens when you can't fit the blocksize in a regular HDs? Can you run 3/4 of the blockchain then the remaining 1/4 part in another HD?

LVM will do the trick. Anyone can build a virtual 2TB HDD from 2 hdd 1TB cap.
It's not a HDD cap problem, it's how btc works.

[mindrust]

Yes it will be. It is already around 100gb and it just doesn't make sense to download all those senseless crap to your precious harddrive. I am using electrum because of this. Bitcoin core database can also get corrupted once in a while and its a pain in the ass to fix it back. (it takes days to fix it)

[friendsofbitcoin]

Here is a calculator to help you.

https://iancoleman.github.io/blocksize/#_

I would suggest 1.5MB is a good average to set it to for the next 4 years. You are looking at about 205 GB a year max or under ~800GB after 4 years.

[chase580]

Well if we can get the blocks smaller, it won't matter. Also, if memory space is growing at a good rate, 700GB won't really be a big deal.

[Vitalik Kuliev]

Hard drive space growths exponentially. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.png
Bitcoin blockchain growths lineally.

Simple calculation shows what 1 modern hard drive can store full blockchain. That is not a problem.
 

[0xfff]

Hard drive space growths exponentially. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.png
Bitcoin blockchain growths lineally.

Simple calculation shows what 1 modern hard drive can store full blockchain. That is not a problem.
 

That is a very nice graph. It does a good job explaining why this shouldn't be so much of concern. SPV clients make it easier for the average joe to spend btc and nodes are the only ones that will need beefy drives.

[Lauda]

Well if we can get the blocks smaller, it won't matter. Also, if memory space is growing at a good rate, 700GB won't really be a big deal.

That is not going to happen. Smaller blocks? Where did you get that absurd idea from? Luke-jr?

Hard drive space growths exponentially. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.png
Bitcoin blockchain growths lineally.

Simple calculation shows what 1 modern hard drive can store full blockchain. That is not a problem.

That is a very nice graph. It does a good job explaining why this shouldn't be so much of concern.

It's obvious that neither one of you have no clue what you're talking about. Please do not spread such false knowledge. Good luck trying to:
1) Synchronize a blockchain of 700gb in 4 years.
2) Re-indexing such a chain, since "this shouldn't be so much of concern".

SPV clients make it easier for the average joe to spend btc and nodes are the only ones that will need beefy drives.

There are people that value their security and privacy and thus run full wallets (full wallet != node).

[DannyHamilton]

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There are people that value their security and privacy and thus run full wallets (full wallet != node).

I'm curious.

In your opinion, what's the difference between a "full wallet" and a "full node"?

[Lauda]

I'm curious.

In your opinion, what's the difference between a "full wallet" and a "full node"?

I would say that a full node is a system which is using a full client implementation and has their port(s) open, thus it is sharing their data with the network (blocks and transactions). I have such a system somewhere. I also have Bitcoin Core on my laptop, which does not have any ports open and is only run when I want to transact (i.e. it is only used as a wallet). So a 'full wallet' would be a fully validating client that is used primary as a wallet and does not contribute to the network.
Am I wrong, or is this difference just not commonly used? I could also claim that 'true' full nodes are only those that have a certain % of up-time, but that is hard to properly define (e.g. what is the right threshold?).
Update: I guess I was slightly wrong here assuming that a node does almost spends no upload bandwidth on incoming peers.

[achow101]

I'm curious.

In your opinion, what's the difference between a "full wallet" and a "full node"?

I would say that a full node is a system which is using a full client implementation and has their port(s) open, thus it is sharing their data with the network (blocks and transactions). I have such a system somewhere. I also have Bitcoin Core on my laptop, which does not have any ports open and is only run when I want to transact (i.e. it is only used as a wallet). So a 'full wallet' would be a fully validating client that is used primary as a wallet and does not contribute to the network.

But it does contribute to the network. It still has outgoing connections and it still validates and then relays all blocks and transactions that it receives to its peers.

The distinction should be that a full wallet is a full node, but not the other way around. A full node fully verifies and validates every block and transaction it receives and then relays them to its peers. However a full node need not necessarily have wallet capabilities. A full wallet is a full node with wallet capabilities.

[TransaDox]

But it does contribute to the network. It still has outgoing connections and it still validates and then relays all blocks and transactions that it receives to its peers.

The distinction should be that a full wallet is a full node, but not the other way around. A full node fully verifies and validates every block and transaction it receives and then relays them to its peers. However a full node need not necessarily have wallet capabilities. A full wallet is a full node with wallet capabilities.

But it doesn't need 100GB of disk storage to do that after it has synch'd.

On an aside to your last sentence......

Something like libbitcoin should be the reference implementation, preferably with a run-time plugin architecture for custom coins, and the community should supply pre-built binaries.  Then developers across platforms can get their teeth into applications instead of trying to rip out bits out of another application. An RPC interface isn't good enough for developers.

[TransaDox]

Hard drive space growths exponentially. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_drive_capacity_over_time.png
Bitcoin blockchain growths lineally.

Simple calculation shows what 1 modern hard drive can store full blockchain. That is not a problem.
 

That is a very nice graph. It does a good job explaining why this shouldn't be so much of concern. SPV clients make it easier for the average joe to spend btc and nodes are the only ones that will need beefy drives.

Only Moores law isn't linear so that graph is misleading.

Don't be fooled by the deniers. Moores law is an observation, not a "law", and the tech industry is already downplaying its significance. CPU speed has plateaued  and memory (which is the tech being flouted by the 700GB fanantics) hasn't been following Moores law for quite some time.

Physics is a bitch and if one looks at all the technologies then the industry has come to the conclusion that Moores law is no longer valid. Intel, recently, changed Moores law to a "design goal" rather than a rigid expectation.

The shamen praying to Moores law for future proofing the blockchain will be finding their incantations insufficient.

[iram3130]

1.6 Mega (after segwit) * 144 * 365 = 80 Giga per year

80 * 4 + 90 = 410 GB    by the end of 2020

+1 for this...
I think it may reach the 700Gb only after 2023 or after.
and Segwit increases the size not the other way.

[Exoskeleton]

Common hard drive space will keep up with the demands of the blockchain just fine. 1TB will be nothing in ten years and by the mid 2020s we will probably have 1TB on mobile devices and such to keep up with 4K video and larger file sizes of all kind. I remember not that long ago when 1GB of storage was a big deal. The size of the total blockchain is the least of bitcoins worries right now.

[Gahs]

I guess that means you do not really see the need for Segwit and Lightning network?