[ANN] Litecoin - a lite version of Bitcoin. Launched!

[DeathAndTaxes]

No mister troll - yure wrong

pls. check any LTC block for its size
for example: http://blockexplorer.sytes.net/block/1fdd1fb08e64731f6341097b9c341ce0eff4695289b6b02ef3f0810ae74ce4d3 (last one)

Not sure why you think that is wrong or what your link "proves".  Looks like about 250 bytes per transaction.  Remember LTC is young.  Most transactions involve only 1 or 2 inputs and a few outputs.  As the number of addresses grow the number of addresses per transaction will grow and the transaction size will grow.  Today BTC is about 512 bytes per transaction.  There is no difference between LTC & BTC blockchain.

Still even if LTC always remained 1 or 2 addresses per transaction, never added contracts, smart property, or more complex transactions it is roughly 4 million transactions per GB.  While that might sounds like a lot if LTC achieved even 1 tps that is 8 GB per year.  The point is if any block chain achieves any reasonable success (1% of Paypal) the block chain will be growing at GBs per year.

I wasn't trolling.
Your claim that LTC blockchain will NEVER be 50GB is saying LTC will never have any meaningful transaction volume.

[mrx]

Hate to point that out, but:

http://blockexplorer.sytes.net/block/81fc7036c24b5ea1dc9173c01226ee5850b65e14f5a1c892b1e5d8f022516e55
http://blockexplorer.sytes.net/block/b7f1abf8f52a4d69d568b130f92994d6ef47d83a46c6e308a69ba238befb77ef

[CAMOPEJB]

Not sure why you think that is wrong or what your link "proves".  Looks like about 250 bytes per transaction.  Remember LTC is young.  Most transactions involve only 1 or 2 inputs and a few outputs.  As the number of addresses grow the number of addresses per transaction will grow and the transaction size will grow.  Today BTC is about 512 bytes per transaction.  There is no difference between LTC & BTC blockchain.

Still even if LTC always remained 1 or 2 addresses per transaction, never added contracts, smart property, or more complex transactions it is roughly 4 million transactions per GB.  While that might sounds like a lot if LTC achieved even 1 tps that is 8 GB per year.  The point is if any block chain achieves any reasonable success (1% of Paypal) the block chain will be growing at GBs per year.

I wasn't trolling.
Your claim that LTC blockchain will NEVER be 50GB is saying LTC will never have any meaningful transaction volume.

LTC is silver compared to BTC (gold) so I'm pretty sure that BTC block chain will grow faster and you can do compression of chain for old transactions.
(also, don't expect THAT big number of transactions - LTC will never replace PayPal or Visa )

So, if LTC have problem with block chain growth, BTC has problem too and I'm pretty sure it will be solved before blockchain grows above 1 GB  

@mrx: +25kb so now it's 314M? Don't see problem here

[localhost]

I don't see how stating the obvious is trolling. Block chain size is a monotonic function in its current state. And I'm not sure there's much left to compress in the chain. At some point we'll need to think of a way to prune some of it, kind of what SC did at the launch of SC2. It's nice to be optimistic that somehow the problem will be solved before it even becomes a problem, but it's all but guaranteed...

[DeathAndTaxes]

LTC is silver compared to BTC (gold) so I'm pretty sure that BTC block chain will grow faster and you can do compression of chain for old transactions.

Well that is very likely but it doesn't negate the fact that block chain growth will become very large for any meaningful transaction volume.  That is just a reality for blockchains.

(also, don't expect THAT big number of transactions - LTC will never replace PayPal or Visa )

My example was for 1 tps (roughly 0.5% of Paypal's peak volume and 0.01% of VISA).  I never said or thought LTC or even BTC will replace VISA.  Any meaningful transaction volume is going to result in block chain growth measured in GB per year.

So, if LTC have problem with block chain growth, BTC has problem too and I'm pretty sure it will be solved before blockchain grows above 1 GB 

I never said LTC has a "problem" with block chain growth just pointing out your belief that LTC will NEVER exceed 50GB is pessimistic.  If it enjoys even modest success it eventually will have a >50GB block chain.  If it doesn't then it likely means it failed. 

[CAMOPEJB]

Check out this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52859.0  
It is just one and not only example  

[bulanula]

WOW. Then somebody really needs to come along and fix this blockchain bloat issue. For me ( in a poor country ) even a gigabyte is a lot to store permanently and the fact that it is growing every day without stopping makes it even more daunting. Also dowloading 1GB is a great hit to my monthly allowance so that is not good either. You have to accept there are some people that are that poor and much less privileged than you in the Imperial USA. If we want to go for mainstream adoption we need to get the poor people on board as well and not just the rich in the West. I think something like BTC or LTC really can thrive in the undemocratic East and other oppressed populations that really need anonymity from the police state. You over in the US can't even comprehend how much control the state has over here and yet you are still claiming your government is tyrannical. You can't even guess . 

[notme]

Check out this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52859.0  
It is just one and not only example  

Please read http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf .  Block size is a solved problem.  The solution just hasn't been implemented in the reference client yet since it's not a big problem yet.  In the future, the regular user will only keep historical blocks with transactions involving their addresses, plus probably the X most recent blocks.  Poof, each irrelevant (to this user) block is now 40 bytes.

Edit: it's actually 80 bytes, not 40.  The past four months have been hard on memory I guess.

[btc_artist]

Check out this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52859.0 
It is just one and not only example 

Please read http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf .  Block size is a solved problem.  The solution just hasn't been implemented in the reference client yet since it's not a big problem yet.  In the future, the regular user will only keep historical blocks with transactions involving their addresses, plus probably the X most recent blocks.  Poof, each irrelevant (to this user) block is now 40 bytes.

I'm not convinced that's an unproblematic solution.

[CAMOPEJB]

Check out this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52859.0  
It is just one and not only example  

Please read http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf .  Block size is a solved problem.  The solution just hasn't been implemented in the reference client yet since it's not a big problem yet.  In the future, the regular user will only keep historical blocks with transactions involving their addresses, plus probably the X most recent blocks.  Poof, each irrelevant (to this user) block is now 40 bytes.

I'm not convinced that's an unproblematic solution.

Well time will tell, right? Or you can just test the solution on testnetwork to convince yourself  

@bulanula: Ummm... are you sure that no one here is from poor country?
And really, if you can not afford 300Gig HDD and FLAT Internet please, oh please don't waste your time on any cryptocurrency!

As long as I can tell: Case closed. Period.

[tacotime]

Check out this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52859.0 
It is just one and not only example 

Please read http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf .  Block size is a solved problem.  The solution just hasn't been implemented in the reference client yet since it's not a big problem yet.  In the future, the regular user will only keep historical blocks with transactions involving their addresses, plus probably the X most recent blocks.  Poof, each irrelevant (to this user) block is now 40 bytes.

I'm not convinced that's an unproblematic solution.

It's really not a problem and will never be anyway; bandwidth and HDD storage size has been increasing exponentially with the computational power of CPUs.  The growth of the chain is far exceeded by the growth of storage medium sizes and the speed at which data is transmitted.

[DeathAndTaxes]

WOW. Then somebody really needs to come along and fix this blockchain bloat issue. For me ( in a poor country ) even a gigabyte is a lot to store permanently and the fact that it is growing every day without stopping makes it even more daunting. Also dowloading 1GB is a great hit to my monthly allowance so that is not good either. You have to accept there are some people that are that poor and much less privileged than you in the Imperial USA. If we want to go for mainstream adoption we need to get the poor people on board as well and not just the rich in the West. I think something like BTC or LTC really can thrive in the undemocratic East and other oppressed populations that really need anonymity from the police state. You over in the US can't even comprehend how much control the state has over here and yet you are still claiming your government is tyrannical. You can't even guess . 

You can use a crypto-currency (BTC or LTC or xCoin) without downloading the block chain.  The block chain WILL continue to grow and if transaction volume grows that growth will be expontential. 

Still examples of not needing the blockchain
* ewallet
* using exchange account
* lite clients

All of those require some level of trust that the source providing your the blockchain is valid but they allow use without a personal copy of the blockchain.

Distributed crypto-currency simply means no central party.  It doesn't mean every single user will be running a node both now and in the future.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Please read http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf .  Block size is a solved problem.  The solution just hasn't been implemented in the reference client yet since it's not a big problem yet.  In the future, the regular user will only keep historical blocks with transactions involving their addresses, plus probably the X most recent blocks.  Poof, each irrelevant (to this user) block is now 40 bytes.

There ARE solutions but what you described isn't a solution and is horribly insecure.

You either need the complete block chain (possibly pruned) or to rely on a trusted source who has the complete block chain.

If you are relying on a partial block chain for validation you can be easily spoofed.  How do you know that an address sending you coins is valid?  How do you know that an address has the right number of coins?  If you "see" on the network a re-organization how do you know those blocks are valid?

A complete block chain is required so each coin can be traced back to genesis.  The client is checking the "chain of custody" to ensure the address does have the balance it says it has.   That being said an individual user doesn't need to have a complete copy as he can rely on a third party (block chain server, lite client, ewallet, etc) but a partial copy of the block chain is a good way to get robbed.

[notme]

Can you please continue this discussion in the previosly mentioned thread?  This is the litecoin thread and that one is dedicated to this discussion.

[terrytibbs]

Can you please continue this discussion in the previosly mentioned thread?  This is the litecoin thread and that one is dedicated to this discussion.

The discussion is related to a current issue with Litecoin, the growing block size.

[coblee]

Can you please continue this discussion in the previosly mentioned thread?  This is the litecoin thread and that one is dedicated to this discussion.

The discussion is related to a current issue with Litecoin, the growing block size.

The Litecoin block chain grows about 4 times faster than Bitcoin. So this may become a problem for us sooner. It's good to hear some ideas about how to fix it.

[kano]

Can you please continue this discussion in the previosly mentioned thread?  This is the litecoin thread and that one is dedicated to this discussion.

The discussion is related to a current issue with Litecoin, the growing block size.

The Litecoin block chain grows about 4 times faster than Bitcoin. So this may become a problem for us sooner. It's good to hear some ideas about how to fix it.

4x ? That would imply 4x the blocks AND 4x the txn ...

[btc_artist]

Can you please continue this discussion in the previosly mentioned thread?  This is the litecoin thread and that one is dedicated to this discussion.

The discussion is related to a current issue with Litecoin, the growing block size.

The Litecoin block chain grows about 4 times faster than Bitcoin. So this may become a problem for us sooner. It's good to hear some ideas about how to fix it.

4x ? That would imply 4x the blocks AND 4x the txn ...

A block is produced every 2.5 minutes, instead of bitcoin's 10 minutes (on average).

[DeathAndTaxes]

Can you please continue this discussion in the previosly mentioned thread?  This is the litecoin thread and that one is dedicated to this discussion.

The discussion is related to a current issue with Litecoin, the growing block size.

The Litecoin block chain grows about 4 times faster than Bitcoin. So this may become a problem for us sooner. It's good to hear some ideas about how to fix it.

4x ? That would imply 4x the blocks AND 4x the txn ...

A block is produced every 2.5 minutes, instead of bitcoin's 10 minutes (on average).

I think the point he is getting at is most of the size of blockchain comes from transactions not blocks.  The non-transaction part of the blocks are something like 80 bytes each.  Compared to BTC the faster blocks adds 20MB per year.

[sd]

Please read http://www.bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf .  Block size is a solved problem.  The solution just hasn't been implemented in the reference client yet since it's not a big problem yet.  In the future, the regular user will only keep historical blocks with transactions involving their addresses, plus probably the X most recent blocks.  Poof, each irrelevant (to this user) block is now 40 bytes.

There ARE solutions but what you described isn't a solution and is horribly insecure.

You either need the complete block chain (possibly pruned) or to rely on a trusted source who has the complete block chain.

If you are relying on a partial block chain for validation you can be easily spoofed.  How do you know that an address sending you coins is valid?  How do you know that an address has the right number of coins?  If you "see" on the network a re-organization how do you know those blocks are valid?

A complete block chain is required so each coin can be traced back to genesis.  The client is checking the "chain of custody" to ensure the address does have the balance it says it has.   That being said an individual user doesn't need to have a complete copy as he can rely on a third party (block chain server, lite client, ewallet, etc) but a partial copy of the block chain is a good way to get robbed.

I don't think that's exactly right. The lite clients need only check confirmations, miners validate transactions and only apply them to the blockchain if they make sense. Other miners only build on those blocks if they make sense so the network has protection from dodgy miners.

You need only trust the confirmation count.