Will mobile devices serve as BTC full nodes in the future?

[pooya87]

The Bitcoin blockchain has been the biggest one in size, compared to other blockchains, thus making sync time take quite some time. Nevertheless, as storage capacity increases each time, we've now seen new standards for mobile devices like a 200GB microSD card.

Now, storage like 200GB is far than enough to store Bitcoin blockchain data. So my question is, will there exist a possibility of running a full node from within your mobile device sometime in the future?

It would be ideal to achieve this, since mobile devices are much more accessible than PCs. Looking forward for your opinion about this. 

yes i believe it is possible. because the rate at which technology is advancing is a lot faster than the rate blockchain size grows.

for example a couple of years ago cell phones did not have this powerful processors and this much storage in them. and a couple of years before that there was nothing called smart phone! now look at where we are.

also something to have in mind is pruning which will reduce the size of blockchain to ~2GB if i am not mistaken.

[Wind_FURY]

The Bitcoin blockchain has been the biggest one in size, compared to other blockchains, thus making sync time take quite some time. Nevertheless, as storage capacity increases each time, we've now seen new standards for mobile devices like a 200GB microSD card.

Now, storage like 200GB is far than enough to store Bitcoin blockchain data. So my question is, will there exist a possibility of running a full node from within your mobile device sometime in the future?

It would be ideal to achieve this, since mobile devices are much more accessible than PCs. Looking forward for your opinion about this. 

My initial thought would be no. But I am not closing my mind to the idea. 20 - 30 years ago we would not have thought that computers in our pockets were possible, now it is a part of regular life. Maybe in the future a Bitcoin node would run in a smart phone like it was nothing. Although there is the bandwidth issue to consider.

[Kakmakr]

My question would be, why would you want to use your mobile phone for that? You do not need the mobility for running a node. You can buy a inexpensive Raspberry Pi and run a node at home from a reliable internet connection. You just need to use a web wallet on the phone, so this is just not practical at the moment to run it on your phone.

In my country, mobile data is more expensive than fixed line rates, so it is not a option at all. ^hmmmmm^

[Abiky]

Ah, okay. I know what you are talking about right now. You should include that part into OP as people may not understand your point exactly. There is no way I see manufacturers insert a dedicated bit of storage just to allow people to host a node from there. It also doesn't make sense to be honest.

It has several negative aspects.

# No benefit in doing so for the manufacturers.
# Full Bitcoin client is way too intensive for a small device, where after a certain amount of hours the device will shut down due to overheating.
# People will complain about it as they see there is a certain amount of free space, but they can't use it because it is dedicated to hosting a node.

And there probably are more negative aspects, but these come to my mind now.

Yeah you do have a point there mate. Since there is no incentive in running a BTC full node, it will be of practically no use. However, if manufacturers decide to make devices specifically to run Dash masternodes, then it would be ideal as there would be an incentive or reward, just to run a masternode to support the Dash network. Manufacturers can then decide to hard code a certain fee from within your masternodes earnings in order for them to receive a portion of your profits made. It may sound crazy, but if implemented it would help bring crypto currencies to the masses.

About the cooling system for the device, a fan-less design could be made, or maybe some kind of liquid cooling system that would keep your device cool for hours when running the node. Just sharing my thoughts. 

[xdrpx]

We already have a proof of concept application for android called as ABCore that allows running a Bitcoin full node on your mobile phones. The application relies on dependencies form Arch linux and supports the latest core 0.13.1 version. I believe with faster memory storage chips it would be possible to receive near SSD speeds in the future for faster reads and writes, at the same time several connectors and adapters already exist for connecting to wired internet to your mobile device. All we'd now need is a phone with a good and fast processor and RAM (probably better than raspberry pi's) on the same ARM environment. Considering this, at the end of the day you'd have a powerful node on your phone.

[Cereberus]

I think this is not needed as of yet but mobile devices, the latest ones with 128 GB and with very good processors like Samsung S7 Edge and Iphone 7 can do it without a problem. In the future I am sure we will see 256 GB storage and they may even go up to 1 TB.

Use only wireless at home and use the mobile data only when you are outside and only after syncing the full blockchain at home first so you don't spend that much.

In my country we have 3G unlimited and 4G with very low price, lots of offers.

[n691309]

Even though there are micro-SD which can hold the size of blockchain I don't think that it would be good for the mobile device to be as node because a node requires good cpu ram and network which would kill the battery fast.

[StevensonCarl]

Even though there are micro-SD which can hold the size of blockchain I don't think that it would be good for the mobile device to be as node because a node requires good cpu ram and network which would kill the battery fast.

I do not think its good and most likely it will also not happen because it has too many risks and it will indeed has a lot of negative things for your phone too.

[Milkduds]

We would need to address all the backdoors in the current cell phones but I also like the idea of setting up a peer to peer internet that stands alone outside the main network. If we can set this up in the future we would have jumped a large hurdle in the death nail of regulation through government.
Current set up says no but we could reach a day sooner than we think for a cell that could safely handle the load.

[n691309]

Even though there are micro-SD which can hold the size of blockchain I don't think that it would be good for the mobile device to be as node because a node requires good cpu ram and network which would kill the battery fast.

I do not think its good and most likely it will also not happen because it has too many risks and it will indeed has a lot of negative things for your phone too.

People may connect the phone with the power 24/7 but we should be sure that the cpu of a mobile phone can't be compared with a pc cpu or server's cpu. Even if it would be possible I wouldn't recommend to run a node on the phone.

[DimensionZ]

I highly doubt so. Surely it's possible to develop a client for the mobile platforms with the current advancement of mobile hardware, but the big question will be if it would be effective? Would you like to lug a battery pack with you the whole day because in order to keep your phone and your client running it would require some serious battery capacity. And with the current trend of slimmer phones every year it seems like a mission impossible. Unless you carry around a bigger tablet, but it's not much better that way either.

[traderethereum]

i am sure that in future, if bitcoin is really accepted by most people, the mobile devices will be make a new concepts for mobile devices itself and they will make new mobile devices that ready to receive btc full nodes so we as bitcoin user don't have difficult when we want to download full nodes.

[Carlsen]

I see too many problems for that as well.
The bandwidth that would consume would be too high compared to the costs.
The electricity that would consume is too high for a mobile device.
With the blockchain on your sd card, there would not be much room for other stuff.

[raven7886]

I see too many problems for that as well.
The bandwidth that would consume would be too high compared to the costs.
The electricity that would consume is too high for a mobile device.
With the blockchain on your sd card, there would not be much room for other stuff.

But things may get changed in near future when mobile devices are coming with inter core processors and memory cards with tera byte capacity along with unlimited bandwidth mobile phone service providers. But the thing is why we need to have full node in a mobile device when we do not need to interact it more frequently.

[Pursuer]

I see too many problems for that as well.
The bandwidth that would consume would be too high compared to the costs.
The electricity that would consume is too high for a mobile device.
With the blockchain on your sd card, there would not be much room for other stuff.

But things may get changed in near future when mobile devices are coming with inter core processors and memory cards with tera byte capacity along with unlimited bandwidth mobile phone service providers. But the thing is why we need to have full node in a mobile device when we do not need to interact it more frequently.

I admit this is an strange question to begin with but you don't run a full node to interact with it yourself all the time. you run a full node usually to support the bitcoin network that is the first and most important purpose of a full node in my opinion.
but I can still see no reason why run it on a cell phone, if you really want to do it, do it on your home pc and keep your pc running instead of your phone.

[7788bitcoin]

As long as we have "sufficient" number of full nodes around the world, adding more full nodes will have little advantage to the network. In addition, full nodes is memory and processing power hunger and therefore shouldn't fit into mobile devices which we carry around.

[Abiky]

We already have a proof of concept application for android called as ABCore that allows running a Bitcoin full node on your mobile phones. The application relies on dependencies form Arch linux and supports the latest core 0.13.1 version. I believe with faster memory storage chips it would be possible to receive near SSD speeds in the future for faster reads and writes, at the same time several connectors and adapters already exist for connecting to wired internet to your mobile device. All we'd now need is a phone with a good and fast processor and RAM (probably better than raspberry pi's) on the same ARM environment. Considering this, at the end of the day you'd have a powerful node on your phone.

I've never thought you could actually do this with an Android device, nowdays since it would be needed faster read and write speeds in order to run a full node at optimal status. Still, I think that this can be improved and maybe sometime in the near future we will get to see even more powerful smartphones and tablets in order to help serve this purpose.

Since it is possible to run a full node on a Raspberry Pi, I was thinking of a RPi powered smartphone where you can have all the great features of texting and calling, plus at the same time being able to support the Bitcoin network. Just as 21 Inc announced the Bitcoin mining chip for smartphones, there could also exist the possibility to implement the necessary hardware requirements in order to run a full node. 

[ranochigo]

We already have a proof of concept application for android called as ABCore that allows running a Bitcoin full node on your mobile phones. The application relies on dependencies form Arch linux and supports the latest core 0.13.1 version. I believe with faster memory storage chips it would be possible to receive near SSD speeds in the future for faster reads and writes, at the same time several connectors and adapters already exist for connecting to wired internet to your mobile device. All we'd now need is a phone with a good and fast processor and RAM (probably better than raspberry pi's) on the same ARM environment. Considering this, at the end of the day you'd have a powerful node on your phone.

I've never thought you could actually do this with an Android device, nowdays since it would be needed faster read and write speeds in order to run a full node at optimal status. Still, I think that this can be improved and maybe sometime in the near future we will get to see even more powerful smartphones and tablets in order to help serve this purpose.

Since it is possible to run a full node on a Raspberry Pi, I was thinking of a RPi powered smartphone where you can have all the great features of texting and calling, plus at the same time being able to support the Bitcoin network. Just as 21 Inc announced the Bitcoin mining chip for smartphones, there could also exist the possibility to implement the necessary hardware requirements in order to run a full node.  

It is definitely possible to run with a Raspberry Pi but it is definitely NOT practical to make it portable. Raspberry Pi nodes are usually connected to an external HDD to store the blockchain since SD cards are extremely slow and would take hours or even days to synchronize. Raspberry Pi nodes are really pushing the limits of the nodes due to the small amount of ram. Running a node with a smartphone would only cause the depletion of battery life and useless data wasted (more than 1GB per month and 50GB+ per month, depending on the nodes you are connected to).

Including a mining chip in a smartphone is an absurd idea. It wouldn't do much good since the TDP would be very limited in it and you would probably not be able to generate a single Bitcoin in your lifetime. it is definitely possible to make a phone run a full node. It is just not practical at all. If you want to support the network, run it in your living room, hidden behind the router.

[Abiky]

It is definitely possible to run with a Raspberry Pi but it is definitely NOT practical to make it portable. Raspberry Pi nodes are usually connected to an external HDD to store the blockchain since SD cards are extremely slow and would take hours or even days to synchronize. Raspberry Pi nodes are really pushing the limits of the nodes due to the small amount of ram. Running a node with a smartphone would only cause the depletion of battery life and useless data wasted (more than 1GB per month and 50GB+ per month, depending on the nodes you are connected to).

Including a mining chip in a smartphone is an absurd idea. It wouldn't do much good since the TDP would be very limited in it and you would probably not be able to generate a single Bitcoin in your lifetime. it is definitely possible to make a phone run a full node. It is just not practical at all. If you want to support the network, run it in your living room, hidden behind the router.

Yeah it would be the best way to go nowadays. Unless, manufacturers decide to implement high end hardware into everyday devices (having full PC power) it wouldn't be worth it to support the BTC network while on the go. Still, I see that the huge advantage the Raspberry Pi has is its power consumption. It is very minimal thus, making it an energy efficient solution to run a decent node at home.

As for microsd cards, they may not be ideal for constant read/write for blockchain data, but if the idea of implementing mSATA into it becomes a reality, then it would really boost performance and thus make it an ideal solution towards HDD or SDD drives.

In my opinion, I think that BTC may have even more nodes established if there was some sort of incentive for it (like Dash Masternodes) That way, it would encourage people to run a node in order to support the network, and get a reward in return. 

[rajasumi2]

well why not. bitcoins can be stored through bitcoin wallet by downloading an app and it is the best for u. so start from today onwards ..so do bitcoining ..kudoos