Is the Bitcoin Block Chain too big?

[ThePanCakeKid95]

Check out my video, I discus this and more

http://youtu.be/WKIU5ha9F8Q

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[Dabs]

For those who don't have time to watch a video, can you post a summary or the transcript here?

[DannyHamilton]

I have no idea what your video is about.  I didn't bother to watch it.  I prefer to use the discussion forum for discussion.

As to your question, the answer is:

No.

[Kouye]

Check out my video, I discus this and more

http://youtu.be/WKIU5ha9F8Q

My Diablo 3 folder is 14.9Go, is it too big ?
My Windows folder is 29.3Go, is it too big ?

[Birdy]

Actually the video and the questions are okay, it's just that this topic has been discussed so much already that people are tired of this.
That's why you receive so much negative backslash on the video.

[adworker]

You dont need to download the Blockchain at all. Use Electrum client for example

[Kouye]

You dont need to download the Blockchain at all. Use Electrum client for example

That's not a very good advice in my opinion. Don't let third parties have the full knowledge of the chain.
Keeping it safe on your side , and checking it against other chains people keep on their side is the best way to make sure nobody can temper it.

If Blockchain and Electrum become the only actors that store the full chain, funny things could probably happen.

[ThePanCakeKid95]

I understand why I received some negative comments on this video, but I do think those who don't read pages of forums would also like to know about some common discussions

[Come-from-Beyond]

You dont need to download the Blockchain at all. Use Electrum client for example

U don't need to use Electrum at all. Use a credit card for example.

[vpitcher07]

Check out my video, I discus this and more

http://youtu.be/WKIU5ha9F8Q

My Diablo 3 folder is 14.9Go, is it too big ?
My Windows folder is 29.3Go, is it too big ?

I don't think it's so much the size once it's on your computer but rather the time it takes to download from the network that can be the problem. If you don't have a fast internet connection it can take a long time.

[jeppe]

People who have problems with the size can just use MultiBit:) It dos not have to sync like the BTC Qt dos.

[Ecurb123]

Check out my video, I discus this and more

http://youtu.be/WKIU5ha9F8Q

Jason, first thanks for the all the videos you've made they were really helpful for me when I was studying btc at the beginning. To answer the question, I think it's fine as it is but I also think that future wallets will have default settings which won't download the full chain.

[Trupik]

As long as it fits on 2TB hard drive, it is not too big. I think there are many of us, who value the bitcoin more than a hundred bucks (which is the price of such HDD nowadays). Blockchain bigger than that would be a bit cumbersome on current office PCs, I admit. But it would take 200 years at present pace to reach this limit.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Comparison of blockchain size to HDD capacity is irrelevant. Ppl who do that usualy don't understand what the issue is.
Anyway, blockchain size problem is unresolvable with currently used technologies/approaches. Core developers won't admit it, u waste time talking about the problem, better switch to other currency.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Comparison of blockchain size to HDD capacity is irrelevant. Ppl who do that usualy don't understand what the issue is.
Anyway, blockchain size problem is unresolvable with currently used technologies/approaches. Core developers won't admit it, u waste time talking about the problem, better switch to other currency.

Or you can ignore people with glowing orange buttons who make unsupported claims.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Comparison of blockchain size to HDD capacity is irrelevant. Ppl who do that usualy don't understand what the issue is.
Anyway, blockchain size problem is unresolvable with currently used technologies/approaches. Core developers won't admit it, u waste time talking about the problem, better switch to other currency.

Or you can ignore people with glowing orange buttons who make unsupported claims.

C'mon. I got the orange button for fighting against the Bitcoin Foundation. And by the way, how can somebody prove that something does not exist? Care to prove the solution of the scalability problem DOES exist? Or will u just ignore this request like all other core devs did?

[gollum]

Most people use laptops with SSD, and cant afford to have a blockchain size of 40 GB or bigger.. that consumes 1/3 or 1/6 of their SSD size.
If we want a truly decentralized network, nobody should be excluded. The solution is therefore to make the blockchain dynamic and small instead of one gigantic mirror on every HDD in the network.

[Trupik]

Most people use laptops with SSD, and cant afford to have a blockchain size of 40 GB or bigger.. that consumes 1/3 or 1/6 of their SSD size.
If we want a truly decentralized network, nobody should be excluded. The solution is therefore to make the blockchain dynamic and small instead of one gigantic mirror on every HDD in the network.

That's a very bold claim, that most people use laptops with SSD. I for one do not know any of them.
I agree that the thing to do is to make a lightweight version of the blockchain that would contain only current spendable transaction outputs. But anyone willing to host the full blockchain should have the means to do so.

[gollum]

Most people use laptops with SSD, and cant afford to have a blockchain size of 40 GB or bigger.. that consumes 1/3 or 1/6 of their SSD size.
If we want a truly decentralized network, nobody should be excluded. The solution is therefore to make the blockchain dynamic and small instead of one gigantic mirror on every HDD in the network.

That's a very bold claim, that most people use laptops with SSD. I for one do not know any of them.
I agree that the thing to do is to make a lightweight version of the blockchain that would contain only current spendable transaction outputs. But anyone willing to host the full blockchain should have the means to do so.

Not at all, nowdays most people buy thin clients like iPad (16GB-32GB) or small laptops (120GB-240GB) instead of heavy desktop PCs with 2TB HDD.
Heavy desktops will become a minority among households, so if we care about decentralization we must consider what kind of clients most people will be using within a few years.
When people need terrabyte storage they buy USB-drives or NAS-drives - which are useless to host the bitcoin client.

[franky1]

i do like these video's but the summation of predicted size of the blockchain in 2016 is a little over the top.
i remember that as of spring 2012 i had to download 8GB of blockchain data. 18 months later it is 11GB so that is only 3GB increase this year...

I am not sure how you even came to the 1.3 Terrabytes total. to get to that figure each block would need to be a fully packed to the top, filled with transactions 25mb block size limit
25x6 =150MB each hour
144x 24 hours=3.6GB each day
3600x365 days=1.3TB each year

i think you are presuming the block limit for 2014-2015 will be lifted to 5mb and 2015-2016 will be lifted to 20mb and that is totally on the presumption that EVERY block has 100% utilisation of transactions filling up 100% of each block to require such a huge jump.

so here goes, a more accurate (yet still guessed) increase of the blockchain size per year

so far 2013: the maximum size of a block is 1MB, there are 6 blocks per hour (1 per 10 minute average) 24 hours in a day 365.. = 52,560GB MAXIMUM chain increase size per year if 100% utilised.
meaning in 2 years (2016) it will be under an 8th of a terrabyte(125GB) if each block was totally 100% filled to the 1mb per block size.

so far the 2009-2012 have shown small amount of transactions which dont utilise the full 1MB space per block, even in 2013 on average only a 5th-8th (12%-20%)of a 1MB block gets utilised meaning the total blockchain for 4 years of running is only 11gb, not hundreds of gigabytes.

so lets pretend transactions atleast doubled next year on average(lets say moved from the 12-20% upto 33% block fill) there maybe another 17GB added to the blockchain totalling 29GB for 2014-2015. and each block still has space per block.

again another year passes and transactions increase double fold equalling 35GB for the 2015-2016 or 64GB for the 2009-2015 total, again still room in the block for more transactions.

i do not think that it will be terrabytes of data, because somehow, somewhere you got the 5fold increase figure, and then used this against the presumption of 100% filled blocks.

now the knit pick is over. you do have potential as a presenter, but its still worth you double checking your figures and research before posting videos or your credibility will slowly decline