Bitcoin will probably be dead within 6 years.

[b!z]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Thin_Client_Security

[revans]

Why do newcomers need to download the blockchain? Its a public ledger available online, its not necessary for 99.9% of the bitcoin community to ever download locally.

Because you cretin, if it became the default for people to verify against a subset of the blockchain, then that situation would very quickly be exploited.

[fghj]

Someone was working on flipping the blockchain, apparently design phase is over but there were no updates since 4 months. Two years ago there were estimates that 90% of blockchain can be pruned.

[Inedible]

Why do newcomers need to download the blockchain? Its a public ledger available online, its not necessary for 99.9% of the bitcoin community to ever download locally.

Because you cretin, if it became the default for people to verify against a subset of the blockchain, then that situation would very quickly be exploited.

Are you having a bad day or something?

[revans]

Why do newcomers need to download the blockchain? Its a public ledger available online, its not necessary for 99.9% of the bitcoin community to ever download locally.

Because you cretin, if it became the default for people to verify against a subset of the blockchain, then that situation would very quickly be exploited.

Are you having a bad day or something?

It just amazes me that people who are betting their financial future on Bitcoin know so little about it.

[Ecurb123]

I think there is a good chance that bitcoin might be gone in 6 years but I don't think it's because the blockchain.

[revans]

Someone was working on flipping the blockchain, apparently design phase is over but there were no updates since 4 months. Two years ago there were estimates that 90% of blockchain can be pruned.

Heh, why not just prune it all once a month and then anyone can do any transaction they please.

[conspirosphere.tk]

a distributed blockchain seems definitely the best option to me. probably the know-how is already there (torrents etc.).
then even who shares his bandwidth and diskspace could earn a slice of the fees pie.

[fghj]

Someone was working on flipping the blockchain, apparently design phase is over but there were no updates since 4 months. Two years ago there were estimates that 90% of blockchain can be pruned.

Heh, why not just prune it all once a month and then anyone can do any transaction they please.

Fliping the blockchain means doing proof of work on UTXO (it will be merged minned) so that new nodes won't have to download whole blockchain to verify new transactions. Currently 0.8x qt nodes calculate their own UTXO when downloading blockchain, with flipped chain POWed UTXO can be downloaded directly after downloading blockheaders. Of course some well budgeted organisations (NSA) will prefer to have complete record of all transations (and some good blockexplorer available to employees).

a distributed blockchain seems definitely the best option to me. probably the know-how is already there (torrents etc.).
then even who shares his bandwidth and diskspace could earn a slice of the fees pie.

Bandwidth is more expensive than storage. I could see nodes storing UTXO and random old blocks (software with slider on how many old blocks do you want to retain)  if flipping the chain was impossible for some reason.

[revans]

Someone was working on flipping the blockchain, apparently design phase is over but there were no updates since 4 months. Two years ago there were estimates that 90% of blockchain can be pruned.

Heh, why not just prune it all once a month and then anyone can do any transaction they please.

Fliping the blockchain means doing proof of work on UTXO (it will be merged minned) so that new nodes won't have to download whole blockchain to verify new transactions. Currently 0.8x qt nodes calculate their own UTXO when downloading blockchain, with flipped chain POWed UTXO can be downloaded directly after downloading blockheaders. Of course some well budgeted organisations (NSA) will prefer to have complete record of all transations (and some good blockexplorer available to employees).

a distributed blockchain seems definitely the best option to me. probably the know-how is already there (torrents etc.).
then even who shares his bandwidth and diskspace could earn a slice of the fees pie.

Bandwidth is more expensive than storage.

Call me when there is a fully functional UTXO implementation in place. So far all I see is a lot of chat, and a demand for payment to do the work.

[fghj]

Call me when there is a fully functional UTXO implementation in place. So far all I see is a lot of chat, and a demand for payment to do the work.

Currently 0.8x qt nodes calculate their own UTXO when downloading blockchain.

Flipping the chain is more question whether UTXO changes can be calculated and verified in miliseconds so blocks can propagate fast.

[anti-scam]

Mini blockchain and blockchain pruning

Quit posting long discredited arguments with provocative titles. It makes you seem stupid.

[revans]

Mini blockchain and blockchain pruning

Quit posting long discredited arguments with provocative titles. It makes you seem stupid.

Which greatly diminishes the security of the blockchain.


The only real solution would be for transactions verified against a subset of the blockhcain to have some degree of reversibility.

[anti-scam]

Mini blockchain and blockchain pruning

Quit posting long discredited arguments with provocative titles. It makes you seem stupid.

Which greatly diminishes the security of the blockchain.


The only real solution would be for transactions verified against a subset of the blockhcain to have some degree of reversibility.

Explain how either solution diminishes the security of the blockchain.

[revans]

Mini blockchain and blockchain pruning

Quit posting long discredited arguments with provocative titles. It makes you seem stupid.

Which greatly diminishes the security of the blockchain.


The only real solution would be for transactions verified against a subset of the blockhcain to have some degree of reversibility.

Explain how either solution diminishes the security of the blockchain.

Allow me to rephrase.

The solutions greatly diminish the integrity of a certain class of Bitcoin transactions.

[cbeast]

Bitcoin is supposed to be a p2p system, using the web or any other central point for download or transaction-only-interaction pretty much defeats the original idea, not that that will stop anybody from using it apperently.

The p2p thing is more about user functionality. Even if only large corporations or states run nodes, they will be competitive with each other. Though there will be some centralization, it won't foster collusion and monopolization.

[disclaimer201]

Why do newcomers need to download the blockchain? Its a public ledger available online, its not necessary for 99.9% of the bitcoin community to ever download locally.

From what I understand, it's something like a torrent, only more valuable because everyone's bitcoin balance is at stake. If one copy exists, someone can modify it and nobody will know the difference. If thousands of copies exist, the doctored version can easily be identified.

Having to download 10 gigabytes of pseudorandom shit isn't very appealing to newcomers, but it's necessary if you wish to use the official wallet software. If you're not using the official client, and especially if you're using an "e-wallet," best of luck. Might as well give an envelope stuffed with cash to a homeless stranger and ask them politely to keep it safe for you.

To answer the thread, bitcoin will not last long if the price continues to increase as it has been. No matter how many people say, "Oh, it's divisible to 8 decimal places," the fact remains that getting 0.00000001 of something is thoroughly disheartening.

Oh please, kids download dozens of movies nowadays that are bigger than 10Gigs, each and every day. It's a non-issue and will be resolved by growing diskspace and the reduction of blockchain data to a necessary amount. Please come back with this subject when the blockchain is 100TB and 100TB harddisks haven't been invented.

[anti-scam]

Mini blockchain and blockchain pruning

Quit posting long discredited arguments with provocative titles. It makes you seem stupid.

Which greatly diminishes the security of the blockchain.


The only real solution would be for transactions verified against a subset of the blockhcain to have some degree of reversibility.

Explain how either solution diminishes the security of the blockchain.

Allow me to rephrase.

The solutions greatly diminish the integrity of a certain class of Bitcoin transactions.

I'm genuinely interested. Do you have any links to share?

[niothor]

Wow , 3 pages of a thread that shouldn't have existed if the Op would have read the Bitcoin wiki.

[Elwar]

Wow , 3 pages of a thread that shouldn't have existed if the Op would have read the Bitcoin wiki.

I am so disappointed by the amount of people who replied to this thread who did not give the obvious answer by Satoshi himself when he created Bitcoin addressing this very issue.

It is possible to verify payments without running a full network node. A user only needs to keep
a copy of the block headers of the longest proof-of-work chain, which he can get by querying
network nodes until he's convinced he has the longest chain, and obtain the Merkle branch
linking the transaction to the block it's timestamped in. He can't check the transaction for
himself, but by linking it to a place in the chain, he can see that a network node has accepted it,
and blocks added after it further confirm the network has accepted it.

As such, the verification is reliable as long as honest nodes control the network, but is more
vulnerable if the network is overpowered by an attacker. While network nodes can verify
transactions for themselves, the simplified method can be fooled by an attacker's fabricated
transactions for as long as the attacker can continue to overpower the network. One strategy to
protect against this would be to accept alerts from network nodes when they detect an invalid
block, prompting the user's software to download the full block and alerted transactions to
confirm the inconsistency. Businesses that receive frequent payments will probably still want to
run their own nodes for more independent security and quicker verification.

I invite all readers and posters of this thread to read about this thing called Bitcoin:
http://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf