Any thought to reduce downloading time of blockchain ?

[diana_s]

it takes me whole 4 weeks to download bitcoin blockchain, is there any way to reduce downloading time?
i dont know if this is feasible:
take a balance snapshot for all the address existed before a special block,and take the  result as a new genesis block,then continue grow the chain from after this special block.the cost of this method is we lose all the transaction detail before that point. and we can choose a right snapshot interval  to do the procedure.may be it can be implemented as an option that  users can choose.  how was ya'll experience?

[Rath_]

it takes me whole 4 weeks to download bitcoin blockchain, is there any way to reduce downloading time?

It looks like either your hardware or Internet connection is at fault. While your node is synchronising, CPU verifies each block one by one. Also, upgrading to an SSD makes a difference in the sync time. Even a Raspberry Pi should be able to finish it in just a few days. How many nodes are you connected to and what's your maximum Internet speed?

take a balance snapshot for all the address existed before a special block,and take the  result as a new genesis block,then continue grow the chain from after this special block.the cost of this method is we lose all the transaction detail before that point. and we can choose a right snapshot interval  to do the procedure.may be it can be implemented as an option that  users can choose.

That's out of the question. Some people share their copies of the blockchain via torrent. It could be faster for you.

[diana_s]

That's out of the question. Some people share their copies of the blockchain via torrent. It could be faster for you.

any idea how to share copies via torrent?

[mocacinno]

I wouldn't download the blockchain via torrent... Not as safe as downloading the blocks from several peers, and you still need to verify and parse the blocks... My advice to you would be to either find the bottleneck on your system or switch to an SPV wallet... SPV wallets only download the block headers, it takes a couple minutes to sync and uses a couple dozen Mb of diskspace.

[HeRetiK]

That's out of the question. Some people share their copies of the blockchain via torrent. It could be faster for you.

any idea how to share copies via torrent?

Be aware that in general bootstrapping the Bitcoin blockchain via torrent is slower than downloading it via your wallet software:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0

If downloading the Bitcoin blockchain is too much of a hassle to you, please consider using Electrum instead as suggested by ETFbitcoin and mocacinno:
https://electrum.org/

[lightningmelo]

You're not just downloading the blockchain, but you're also validating that every block is correct which also takes some time.

This guarantees that you can verify any transaction validity without having to trust any 3rd party, I'd say that's worth the 4 weeks of downloading.

However, there are some improvements being made by protocol developers to make the IBD (initial block download) faster, such as assumeutxo.

[harryjackmen]

you can clearly just download blockchain via torrent, I agree with @BitCryptex  
herewith i attach you a source to listen (if you don't wanna read)  

https://zoobc.org/index.php?topic=130.0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNlayWFMT0o

Why do you need to download whole Bitcoin Blockchain? If you don't plan to run Bitcoin full node or only want to have a Bitcoin wallet, you could use SPV wallet such as Electrum.

On a side note, your idea is called UTXO commitment.

any idea how to share copies via torrent?

You need to look for people who share Bitcoin's blockchain on BitTorrent protocol, But overall time to download and verify blockchain remains same.

[franky1]

the actual assumevalid and assumeutxo idea above is not good protocol for actually validating every transaction from genesis till now. and has many flaws such as sybil attacks by someone using a bitcoin fork could slide their chain in if the checkpoints matched(the fork of differing blocks occured after checkpoint).

EG imagine an assumevalid/utxo checkpoint was done chosen for 2016. yes all transactions and blockhashes match so sniffing peers results would pass the test that everyone has the same hash result. but the transactions after which your then independently testing wont. and thats where things get problematic.

EG someone can fork btc into a private network, start making their own blocks at a lower hashrate. and then have some specially designed sybil nodes. that sniff out new users and filling up their 8 node connections with 8 sybil nodes. thus controlling everything the user gets and sees.

separately
.. the actual issue people have is not that it takes them 4 weeks to download. but that their node is stuck with a 'downloading blockchain' message and no other function until the blockchain is uptodate.

this is where the blockchain should be downloaded as normal validating EVERY transaction and block since genesis. but where instead of waiting and twiddling thumbs doing nothing for 4 weeks, the node can grab a snapshot of a UTXOset quick, so that people can just get on and transact. and then they wont notice the real blockchain stuff going on as it becomes a hidden background thing not interrupting their plans

for those not wanting to be part of the network as a seed for other to download from them ('the cries of bandwidth costs of doing so') then can just forget being fullnodes and just be litenodes and just grab a utxo snapshot

as for concerns about spending funds where a person accidentality gets a bad UTXO set.. well thats what the relay network and miners mempool is for. to reject invalid transactions......

an approach to ensure your getting a good set is by having it where you are trying to download from 1000 different peers.. but makes you a bad 'leacher' in download terms. which is why most devs agree that its best to only do it via 8-10 peers.. but these 8-10 peers could be sybil nodes and when doing hash checks you would obviously get the same results as they are the only peers your connected to.
what some have suggested is to allow 1000 connections to random peers. not to download the blockchain. but to have more scope of the hash checks to make sure what your getting from the 8-10 peers is good data. rathr than just hash checking with the very same people that gave you the data

[pereira4]

A nice trick to speed up your synchronization time is to get the best possible peers. This website uses an index with an algorithm (open source) and they generate this rank:

https://bitnodes.earn.com/nodes/leaderboard/

You can add nodes either on the debug console with addnode <ip> add or in the peers.dat file, by simplying copy pasting the list of nodes there. This really makes a change so try it out.

[1Referee]

separately
.. the actual issue people have is not that it takes them 4 weeks to download. but that their node is stuck with a 'downloading blockchain' message and no other function until the blockchain is uptodate.

This. I have helped a relative last year after complaining about the process of 'downloading' blocks taking too long, and that with a 100mbit cable connection. Turns out, the validation process is what took him so long, and this is directly where most new people go wrong. They assume that downloading the blockchain is similar to downloading a movie file or something.

People have no clue about how heavy it is on the system to validate every bit of data that goes back like 10 years. In Bitcoin's history there have been almost 460 million transactions and 1.23 billion outputs. If people start to understand how much computing goes into validating that data, and how regular hdd's further slow down that process, they will probably refrain from running their own node and just go with an SPV client (which for most ordinary users is the best option).

[CounterEntropy]

If downloading the Bitcoin blockchain is too much of a hassle to you, please consider using Electrum instead as suggested by ETFbitcoin and mocacinno:
https://electrum.org/

I guess, it can be done with Bitcoin Core itself through pruning. To enable block pruning set prune=N on the command line or in bitcoin.conf, where N is the number of MiB to allot for raw block and undo data.

Details: https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#reduce-storage

[franky1]

If downloading the Bitcoin blockchain is too much of a hassle to you, please consider using Electrum instead as suggested by ETFbitcoin and mocacinno:
https://electrum.org/

I guess, it can be done with Bitcoin Core itself through pruning. To enable block pruning set prune=N on the command line or in bitcoin.conf, where N is the number of MiB to allot for raw block and undo data.

Details: https://bitcoin.org/en/full-node#reduce-storage

pruning does not help the user as a full network helper
first you still need to download the entire blockchain first and then the node sets itself to only keep the latest few days/weeks of blocks and deletes the rest.
thus making the whole point of even bothering to download the blockchain useless waste of time. might aswell just be a litenode and have a utxo snapshot.
also pruned nodes dont have the blockchain so they wont then be seeders to help others. thus just being a selfish leacher and sitting on the relay network while not helping the network fully.
its one of th stupid things i thought core devs added as a feature of their FULL NODE implementation because they are not full nodes if they cannot be a seed for others to download from.
so yea if you dont wanna be a seed and dont want peers grabbing data from you. just dont bother trying to be a full node and use a lite node instead

[Jet Cash]

Get off Windows 10 if you are using it. I've been able to sync' my blockchain without any problems for a few years, and that is using public WiFi. Following the latest major upgrade of Windows 10, i'm getting dumped by quite a few peers, and it is becoming difficult to maintain the blockchain. I need to see if Mint supports the Brave browser, and go back to Linux.

[Carlton Banks]

If you're feeling incredibly brave, you can test out the pull requests from this user on github which all together can apparently cut the IBD time by ~14%.

But 14% is not big enough to justify such a risky move, these are testing changes, and as such are not for real-world use in their current state. Although this particular change has been pulled into 0.19.0 release candidate, and is perhaps lower risk. I would still advise against it if you're expecting stability, there is a big risk that the full consequences of these changes have not yet been observed, as they've only seen limited testing.

[Macadonian]

Get off Windows 10 if you are using it. I've been able to sync' my blockchain without any problems for a few years, and that is using public WiFi. Following the latest major upgrade of Windows 10, i'm getting dumped by quite a few peers, and it is becoming difficult to maintain the blockchain. I need to see if Mint supports the Brave browser, and go back to Linux.

This is probably due to all the background processes within Windows 10 but for this to have any effect your internet would have to be incredibly slow in the first place. Windows 10 should not be dropping anymore peers than Windows 7 would in theory. The only thing I can think of is the way Windows 10's firewall is implemented and its blocking certain peers from connecting via the Bitcoin core program.

[DaCryptoRaccoon]

https://bitcoin.org/bin/block-chain/

You can bootstrap download the chain from here just make sure to check the signatures it will help you.

It is advisable to download from the network but this is a way for those who struggle with downloading or have poor connection.

Code:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA512


Torrent info hash: 36719ba2cecf9f3bd7c5abfb7a88e939611b536c
Torrent magnet link:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:36719ba2cecf9f3bd7c5abfb7a88e939611b536c&dn=bootstrap.dat&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fcoppersurfer.tk%3A6969%2Fannounce&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337&tr=http%3A%2F%2Fbttracker.crunchbanglinux.org%3A6969%2Fannounce

Block height: 317000
Filename: bootstrap.dat
Byte size: 22566124235
SHA1: 2e6e5dd20cd9c21960ba94f7265f42c4b6443758
SHA256: d05062052be4dd6fbaeac5f17598e52f7ad545f9f938acefaf7067ecce1d7b5a

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG/MacGPG2 v2.0.22 (Darwin)
Comment: GPGTools - http://gpgtools.org

iQEcBAEBCgAGBQJT+PcrAAoJEL8a4JGi25zKmj4H/i8xKIXW/xnw5i5Pc+ciUuc2
Zo+KxQd1YGRmJSvGsyTgTqK4IJUBD8s8tIGTtznCJ2/Q3wIdZmoqxkST7r4rqJly
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Code:

As of Bitcoin Core version 0.10.0 and later, the block chain bootstrap
torrent hosted here takes more time to download and import than it would
to simply start Bitcoin Core and let it sync itself.

Forum thread on BitcoinTalk:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0

Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind version 0.7.1 and later supports a special import feature:  If the file "bootstrap.dat" is found in the bitcoin data directory, it will validate and import all blockchain data found in that file.  The following torrent presents a bootstrap.dat file for that feature.

----------------------
What is bootstrap.dat?

It is a flat, binary file containing bitcoin blockchain data, from the genesis block through a recent height.

Versions 0.7.1+ automatically validates and imports a file in the data directory named "bootstrap.dat".

Special note: Version prior to 0.8.0 have a bug which will only import 2G of data from a file.  This is fixed in 0.8.0.

------------------------
Who wants bootstrap.dat?

Anyone bringing up a new node using the reference client.  This is one method of accelerating the initial blockchain download process, while helping the bitcoin P2P network by offloading data download traffic from public P2P nodes.

This download is not for those who are already running the bitcoin client.

---------------------------------------
How often will this torrent be updated?

Assuming this project is deemed useful and worth continuing... the torrent will be updated once every few months, when the checkpoints are updated in the reference client source code.

--------------------------------------
Why not update the torrent more often?

A torrent works best when it is a large, static dataset that changes infrequently.  That maximizes the ability to seed the data, enabling even part-timer seeders to contribute meaningfully.  Less frequent changes also minimizes the risk that a malicious torrent will appear, with a long, malicious side chain.  The current policy only updates the torrent after blocks are buried many thousands deep in the chain.

-----------------------
Why should I trust you?

You don't have to:  This data is raw block chain data.  The client will verify this data during import.

Independent third parties may generate their own bootstrap.dat, up to a recent height, and verify that the sha256sum matches that posted above.  The file format is simple and publicly known:

     <4-byte pchMessageStart><32-bit length><CBlock, serialized in network wire format>

----------------------------------------
How can I help?  Do you need more seeds?

Yes, we need as many long term seeds as possible.  This ensures we can meet torrent download demand immediately at high speeds, and remain idle the remainder of the time.

[Carlton Banks]

https://bitcoin.org/bin/block-chain/

You can bootstrap download the chain from here just make sure to check the signatures it will help you.

It is advisable to download from the network but this is a way for those who struggle with downloading or have poor connection.

this is a bad idea, do NOT listen to the above advice under any circumstances.

You risk being connected to a fake blockchain if you download random torrents without knowing what you're doing

@MagicByte your post is irresponsible

I was wrong about this, apologies to MagicByt3


it's still pointless to use this old torrent bootstrap, it won't speed up IBD. And it only includes the first 2-3 years of Bitcoin's blockchain, so it adds steps for no benefit.

[Macadonian]

You could download the Blockchain from a torrent however it is extremely advised not too because of the risk that you run of it being infected or altered. Even if it comes from Bitcoin.org I would still advise downloading it natively through the network because that version coming directly from the network is checked by nodes to assure that everything is synchronized and nothing has been altered. Downloading from a torrent although quicker is risky and I would advise members of the forum not to advise others of downloading from there even if there is severe limitations on internet and disk space.

[Carlton Banks]

Downloading from a torrent although quicker

it's not quicker, since about 4-5 years ago. There's literally no point in using bittorrent to download the blockchain since version 0.10 (which was released in 2015)

[naska21]

....

 Also, upgrading to an SSD makes a difference in the sync time.

Yeah, in terms of synch the major time consumer is disk's I/O operations and in this respect NVMe-compatible  SSD would perform even better than say SATA SSD.