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

[bit1]

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.

You are probably right, perhaps in a decade there will be more devices with a lot of storage capacity, but I do not want to imagine the amount of time it will take to download the entire chain, maybe the future lies in light wallets, and large chains will be stored in data-centers, If you look on the graphs of the size of the chain , it is being stretched to form a straight line upwards, and when this happens the size will grow at an exorbitantly large rate, perhaps it will be the largest system of data storage known by the human since the beginning of mankind, That is why other insurance projects are offering alternatives that are much more economical and more practical to perform, but since all are represented as pairs of BTC continue to carry on transactions to the huge chain.

[morantis]

while that may be true, technology is going fast too.  at this moment, there are two distinct wallet types for a computer, one that needs the block chain downloaded and one that does not.  for common practice, a lightweight wallet is fine.  i would imagine that those downloading the full boat, there are reasons, such as coding and programming tx's that they wish to do, that is why we have the whole chain.

also, tech for storage is going fast too.  it was not long ago that a usb drive was restricted to under 64 GB, they are much bigger now.  i would wager that a quick search could bring up a 1 TB usb drive, i could be wrong, but i bet if not right now, within a year it will be out there

[Jet Cash]

I've got a cheap HP notebook that is over a year old, and the hard drive is 2Tb. I expect my next one will be much larger than that.

[d5000]

Internet bandwidth is more of a concern when we talk about block sizes than HD space.

As Lauda already mentioned that's why synchronizing and reindexing a large blockchain would be a pain. The most obvious and easy solution would be to download blockchain snapshots before synchronizing, but that should be no solution for reindexing and it also could lead to some centralization (e.g. when most users use a certain source, that repo could develop into a single point of failure).

So in my opinion, it's absolutely a "must" that Bitcoin gets enhanced features which allow the main blockchain to inter-operate in a trustless manner with sidechains and alt-chains, and to do off-chain transactions (LN and similar solutions). However, a slight maximum block size increase should be doable (10-20% per year), as this is approximately the average internet bandwith growth per year.

[morantis]

Internet bandwidth is more of a concern when we talk about block sizes than HD space.

As Lauda already mentioned that's why synchronizing and reindexing a large blockchain would be a pain. The most obvious and easy solution would be to download blockchain snapshots before synchronizing, but that should be no solution for reindexing and it also could lead to some centralization (e.g. when most users use a certain source, that repo could develop into a single point of failure).

So in my opinion, it's absolutely a "must" that Bitcoin gets enhanced features which allow the main blockchain to inter-operate in a trustless manner with sidechains and alt-chains, and to do off-chain transactions (LN and similar solutions). However, a slight maximum block size increase should be doable (10-20% per year), as this is approximately the average internet bandwith growth per year.

once we start operating off the block chain, then we are open to security issues.  keep in mind that a new or casual user these days or a "commerce" user in the near future does not know enough about the way bitcoin works to not get taken advantage of.  right now, that block chain, whether downloaded or accessed via the network is the one thing that will keep the novices safe

[d5000]

once we start operating off the block chain, then we are open to security issues.  keep in mind that a new or casual user these days or a "commerce" user in the near future does not know enough about the way bitcoin works to not get taken advantage of.

In part (as far as I understand LN and other similar proposals) I agree. There are more things an user must know and evaluate when using these off-chain systems than with regular on-chain transactions.

But in my opinion, LN and other off-chain methods are still suitable if you use them for small micropayments (everything less than 5-10 USD). Most people in first-world countries could afford to "risk" enabling a LN payment channel for, let's say, 100 USD per month. It would be like a prepaid card, and for potential scammers there would be probably not enough incentive to attack single users. (If there are attack scenarios that could affect multiple users at the same time, that may change, though).

[NiceDev]

When I bought my first 1TB harddrive, it was more than 5 years ago.

I believe most people can afford 700GB for now.

[freemanjackal]

when you go to the the site bitcoin.org and go to download section says

You should make sure that you have enough bandwidth and storage for the full block chain size (over 100GB)

is this the size of the core or the size that has right now the blockchain. i guess the blockchain is downloaded by the core, am i right