Block chain size/storage and slow downloads for new users

[tvbcof]

But what if so few people start storing the full block chain, that somebody can mass install a fake one with fake info, thus ruining bitcoin?  I'm not sure this is the greatest thing int he world, sorta compromises a system like bitcoin...  It will just cause fewer people to own the complete blockchain...  Am I wrong on this?

Yes, you are probably wrong on this.

As the OP has famously said, Bitcoin could run just fine if only 4 or 5 copies of the blockchain existed.  Presumably it would be large entities who hold these copies and run the 'supernodes' required to process the incoming data and datasets.  He is probably right about this due to the way Bitcoin is designed, and it would certainly make it a lot easier to deploy 'red-listing' or whatever the preferred marketing term is these days.

This is not the evolutionary path I would like to see Bitcoin go down, but I'm just an ordinary user and enthusiast.

[dragin33]

This, combined with off-chain transactions like https://inputs.io, gives me a lot of hope for Bitcoin.

I assume  you've lost some of that hope now.      j/k

[solex]

But what if so few people start storing the full block chain, that somebody can mass install a fake one with fake info, thus ruining bitcoin?  I'm not sure this is the greatest thing int he world, sorta compromises a system like bitcoin...  It will just cause fewer people to own the complete blockchain...  Am I wrong on this?

"mass install a fake one with fake info"
Please read up about proof of work. The existing blockchain can't be faked without an improbable amount of computing power.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_work

As the OP has famously said, Bitcoin could run just fine if only 4 or 5 copies of the blockchain existed.  Presumably it would be large entities who hold these copies and run the 'supernodes' required to process the incoming data and datasets.  He is probably right about this due to the way Bitcoin is designed, and it would certainly make it a lot easier to deploy 'red-listing' or whatever the preferred marketing term is these days.

This is not the evolutionary path I would like to see Bitcoin go down, but I'm just an ordinary user and enthusiast.

This is gloom and doom. The evidence is that the increasing unit value of bitcoin is increasing the number of nodes. Whether they will be persistent for long periods is not known yet, but this uptick (likely driven by the rise from $120 to $800) is very encouraging.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=345258.0

[Mike Hearn]

it would certainly make it a lot easier to deploy 'red-listing' or whatever the preferred marketing term is these days.

It would make no difference. To propagate colourings/markings of coins, all you need is a UTXO set and to keep up with new blocks. You don't need access to the entire history of the chain.

Please don't assert things like that if you don't understand the technical details.

[giveBTCpls]

So I downloaded bootstrap.dat, 9GB+ from the torrent file on the source page, and I put it on my Bitcoin folder, but it's still so far away from completing the download. Am i doing something wrong? because its still 31 weeks behind.
I think im giving up on qt and i'll ulse Multi, I hope it looks the same now that i learned how to use the default client. Can u encrypt wallet.dat with it and so on?

Can anyone tell me what to do

[tvbcof]

it would certainly make it a lot easier to deploy 'red-listing' or whatever the preferred marketing term is these days.

It would make no difference. To propagate colourings/markings of coins, all you need is a UTXO set and to keep up with new blocks. You don't need access to the entire history of the chain.

Please don't assert things like that if you don't understand the technical details.

I actually meant to indicate that when a small number of entities have the resources (and freedom) necessary to operate the Bitcoin network infrastructure, it is more possible to enforce the use of all manners of constructs.  This would include any number of types of lists, personal identification mappings, authentications, etc.

I believe that one needs to parse and process the entire blockchain to get the UTXO set, or get it from someone who has, but that it is easily safe to do so (under the current implementation) so it's a moot point and a red herring.

My main point is that it seems to me that if I were running a business in an ordinary manner, I would want the UTXO set and other constraints to grow to what I could comfortably manage but which my lesser competition could not.  My similar sized peers would probably agree.  Between us, we could make the pool of people who's choice of software defines how the system operates a relatively small one.  Of course it would be helpful if users were mostly just running Multibit and such shifts would go largely unnoticed.

Chinese operators who cannot be uniformly pressured by authorities (a-la prism), alt-coins, and general knowledge on the part of the userbase may yet come to the rescue.  Hope so.  If not, my fall-back is, as always, to try to time things such that I get insanely rich off Bitcoin and move on to other more interesting things.

[Peter Todd]

it would certainly make it a lot easier to deploy 'red-listing' or whatever the preferred marketing term is these days.

It would make no difference. To propagate colourings/markings of coins, all you need is a UTXO set and to keep up with new blocks. You don't need access to the entire history of the chain.

Please don't assert things like that if you don't understand the technical details.

To make blacklists effective you want a small number of entities holding the blockchain so you can apply them directly there.

Please don't assert things like that if you don't understand the political and social details.

[phazon307]

Testing [img=http://s16.postimg.org/6cqqjeept/DSCF6222.jpg]

[botolo86]

Just to say that this problem is quite annoying. I have been syncing with my Mac for two days now and it's still at 207000 blocks. I have Time Warner and I usually download super fast so I don't think it's a connection issue. The Mac is an iMac 27 Mid 2011 with 8GB of RAM, so I don't think it's a computer problem. It's just the software which is freaking slow.

[Mike Hearn]

You can use a lightweight client instead, then.

[mydream2059]

Yes, I'd like to use Blockchain wallet.

[botolo86]

You can use a lightweight client instead, then.

The lightweight clients are not secure as the official client, unfortunately.

[PrintMule]

You can use a lightweight client instead, then.

The lightweight clients are not secure as the official client, unfortunately.

Good luck downloading blockhain on a new machine. We've long past comfortable dvd backup size, and almost past 16gb flash drive mark.

If devs would come up with solution which would at least halve blockchain, I bet people would donate larger sums as a "Thank you" message.

[jgarzik]

If devs would come up with solution which would at least halve blockchain, I bet people would donate larger sums as a "Thank you" message.

Fantasy.  Nobody donates, much less large sums.  This is a cute delusion.

While working as a volunteer core dev for years, I received a whopping...  ~30 BTC in donations.  https://blockchain.info/address/1BrufViLKnSWtuWGkryPsKsxonV2NQ7Tcj  The vast majority of that prior to 2013, leaving the monetary total well under $500 for years worth of work.

Donating will not bring down blockchain size.  Technically infeasible, even if donations work.  Which they don't.

[tvbcof]

If devs would come up with solution which would at least halve blockchain, I bet people would donate larger sums as a "Thank you" message.

Fantasy.  Nobody donates, much less large sums.  This is a cute delusion.

While working as a volunteer core dev for years, I received a whopping...  ~30 BTC in donations.  https://blockchain.info/address/1BrufViLKnSWtuWGkryPsKsxonV2NQ7Tcj  The vast majority of that prior to 2013, leaving the monetary total well under $500 for years worth of work.

Donating will not bring down blockchain size.  Technically infeasible, even if donations work.  Which they don't.

I thought maaku got a fair amount of donations for a well defined project aimed at addressing some of the scaling issues?  No idea how that effort is progressing, but it seems like there is some interest there.

I personally donated a reasonable amount to retep's video.  The reason for this is that I thought that education was more important than specific realistic developments at that time.

It sounds from what gmaxwell (and you?) are saying, there is a possibility to retain a p2p architecture without necessarily holding the entire block chain.  Some architecture which could back-fill block contents as needed (and share them) seems like a theoretically viable structure as long as there was a means to discourage glue spam transactions.  Dunno if that's what is alluded to or not.  I should study it more.  Anyway, if 0.9 comes out with something which promotes the original principles of a user-operated infrastructure, I will donate to the principle architects and/or implementors directly and with reasonable generosity.  I'll not go through the Bitcoin Foundation as I disagree with the structure and their methods.

[PrintMule]

If devs would come up with solution which would at least halve blockchain, I bet people would donate larger sums as a "Thank you" message.

Fantasy.  Nobody donates, much less large sums.  This is a cute delusion.

While working as a volunteer core dev for years, I received a whopping...  ~30 BTC in donations.  https://blockchain.info/address/1BrufViLKnSWtuWGkryPsKsxonV2NQ7Tcj  The vast majority of that prior to 2013, leaving the monetary total well under $500 for years worth of work.

Donating will not bring down blockchain size.  Technically infeasible, even if donations work.  Which they don't.

Quite surprising to hear that. You see little amounts donated for less useful stuff daily.
Anyway, this thing could be set up as a "kickstarter" of sorts.

You define your roadmap:
1)Do A
2)Do B
3)Do C

and add a donation pool to every key. If people decide to see feature C implemented beforehand - they donate towards it, and C takes priority. There should be a realistic multiplier applied to each objective of course.

[justusranvier]

I thought maaku got a fair amount of donations for a well defined project aimed at addressing some of the scaling issues?  No idea how that effort is progressing, but it seems like there is some interest there.

It's still progressing.

According to a recent email conversation he's financially set, "through the end of January at least" and will be posting updates on the progress thus far shortly.

Apparently those who try it can, in fact, support their development via donations.

Time spent complaining that "donations don't work" in spite of evidence to the contrary would be better spent building a superior alternative to redonate.net, IMHO.

[jellies]

Without reading this topic, I have one contribution.

user Satoshi posted shortly before vanishing in 2010:

"I tested it on a slow 7 year old drive, where bandwidth and CPU were clearly not the bottleneck.  Initial download took 1 hour 20 minutes.

If it's taking a lot longer than that, certainly 24 hours, then it must be downloading from a very slow node, or your connection is much slower than around 15KB per sec (120kbps), or something else is wrong.  It would be nice to know what appears to be the bottleneck when that happens."


Given that every time I start bitcoin-qt and the connections indicator goes to healthy green, but the initial download takes more than 24 hours, I would say his original vision for how fast the download for new users should be, is not panning out, and we're not even at 1% of the paypal transaction volume yet.

So what exactly is the problem? that the block chain is growing faster than the average users broadband connection speed, or the network and software design is currently not able to deliver the data as fast as it should -- even after you poke holes in your firewall?

[CoinCidental]

i can download a 1.5 gig torrent on 20 MB/s  broadband and usually get about 1.4MB/s  average
it should take me 30-60 min  to downlaod the blockchain max if its only a 16 gb file on my 2 TB disk

but a fresh install on a computer takes around 2 days  running 24/7  and my computers is fast and modern

not a major annoyance for me since i have a fast line and computer but ive had friends who took 1-2 weeks to download the blockchain in other countries over 3g  dongles etc and netbooks

i run the full client  and advise everyone i know  to do the  same although i have a multibit  wallet too which is easy to sync in a few seconds

anyone with low end tech or connection is going to have trouble downloading this entire chain unless it was somehow limited to the last 10GB of transactions and blocks before that could be recycle bined

[justusranvier]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=204283.0