Alternative way to set up full node without downloading the full blockchain?

[ABCbits]

because pruned nodes are unnecessary and hold no value to the network or even the user.

That's not true, pruned nodes still have value on network by sharing recent transaction/blocks. And from business side, pruned node is useful to accept Bitcoin payment or help manage LN channel without rely on 3rd party at lower cost. Self-hosted solution such as BTCPayServer support pruned node and it's even default option on their docker guide.

[BlackHatCoiner]

And I responded that 3 different block explorer would have 3x8 connections for a total of 24.

How can you be sure about that? You have to trust the block explorers while the technology promotes the opposite. By running your own node, you trust no one. Don't you like the maximum number of connections? Increase it, it's in the source code. Be your own block explorer.

The OP lost $80 on excess mobile data just from attempting sync

Because they're doing it wrong. No one should use their mobile data to sync the chain, for the same reason they shouldn't use them to download a 4k 3-hour movie from a pirate site; better just buy it, it'll come cheaper!

[PrivacyG]

And I responded that 3 different block explorer would have 3x8 connections for a total of 24.
Making a sybil attack 3X harder.

Is there any proof that a block explorer shows legit information of a blockchain?  There is not.  Block explorers are used based on trust.  Under ideal circumstances, meaning every block explorer has a different owner with no malicious intents and the explorers have not been targeted by attacks that maliciously show you wrong information, what you say is true.  But rather than relying on the information others show you, I believe there is so much less need to trust if the node is ran by yourself.  If you call a block explorer safer than running a full or pruned node that YOU are hosting, you are wrong.

A 1TB drive cost $38 US$ on amazon.

If a 1 TB drive is unaffordable , they don't need to be wasting resources they need for survival items,
because pruned nodes are unnecessary and hold no value to the network or even the user.

Full nodes help the network stay healthy and alive.  I agree.  But how are pruned nodes unnecessary and useless?  I do not understand.  The way I see it is, full nodes help the network by improving its security and health while pruned nodes help you by ensuring you that what you see in your wallet is legit and you can be independent even without the storage space requirement.  1TB drives are affordable but have you considered some want to run a Bitcoin wallet on their smartphones without relying on servers, in a safe and private manner?

Open Electrum and enter a seed.  Great, now every single request for every single searched address goes to the same server.  Your privacy is worsened immediately.  If you run a pruned node, this is not the case.  You can enjoy privacy on a budget.  You may not be helping the network's health, but you are helping yourself and besides syncing time I do not think there is any advantage of running an SPV wallet over a pruned node.

-
Regards,
PrivacyG

[pooya87]

And I responded that 3 different block explorer would have 3x8 connections for a total of 24.
Making a sybil attack 3X harder.

Is there any proof that a block explorer shows legit information of a blockchain?  There is not.

Exactly.
The false information may not even be malicious but just their buggy implementation showing wrong information. The most famous example I can think of is the Genesis block's address balance where majority of block explorers are showing the wrong balance.
Wrong (68.53407772):

Code:

https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa/
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
https://btc.com/btc/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
https://explorer.viawallet.com/btc/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
https://bitinfocharts.com/bitcoin/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa-full
https://bitaps.com/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
https://www.walletexplorer.com/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa?page=33

Correct (18.52407772):

Code:

https://blockstream.info/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa
https://xchain.io/address/1A1zP1eP5QGefi2DMPTfTL5SLmv7DivfNa

P.S. another obvious bug here is the fact that they show P2PK output as P2PKH address and they all do that!

[franky1]

Pruned nodes are an insult to a blockchain, if you are not going to host the entire chain, a pruned pretense is worthless because it adds nothing except some feel good propaganda nonsense

You can run a pruned full node for the sake of you; it doesn't have to be for the network.

blackhatcoiner suffers from the altnet delusions of not wanting blockchains to work. he does not believe in them
he has tried many ways to try to convince people that blockchains dont work, cant scale and people should not be full noders by pretending if you switch off all the features of a full node your still a full node.

he wants people to stop using bitcoin daily, he hates that people want to use bitcoin for daily use stuff. he wants people to move over to an altnet and not use bitcoin for weeks/months at a time, to an altnet that doesnt even have a blockchain.

he has no clue as to the word "full" and just wants to exaggerate the word "node"

part of the full node feature is to be supporting the network. its not about individual validation. its about the network effect.
its about being a seeder so that others can initial block download.
its about having the chain to verify no hacker has edited your data because you can compare the utxo to its txid, to its block merkle, to the block hash, to the chains current height hash, to other peers chain height hash.

if everyone was just to store a utxoset and separately just a bunch of blockheaders but nothing inbetween to compare the 2 datasets. then the data integrity is broke
just having a personal utxo set is not a full node feature.

full node is a term that has existed for 13 years.
pruning is a newish step down option that has only existed for a few years. pruning has never been defined as part of a full node feature because pruning was not even a thing when fullnodes were defined

pruning is a step down from full node status.

this is not to say that some users should/shouldnt personally decide their level of involvement. nor is it saying that pruned mode is useless.. but it sure as hell is less useful for the network security/integrity/feature-case. and less useful at the personal use feature-case

there is nothing wrong with highlighting that pruned node is an option. but there is alot wrong with pretending that pruning is the same level as a full node

[LegendaryK]

because pruned nodes are unnecessary and hold no value to the network or even the user.

That's not true, pruned nodes still have value on network by sharing recent transaction/blocks. And from business side, pruned node is useful to accept Bitcoin payment or help manage LN channel without rely on 3rd party at lower cost. Self-hosted solution such as BTCPayServer support pruned node and it's even default option on their docker guide.

Pruned node perform no added function, that is not performed by a full node holding the entire blockchain.
Sorry ,  it is true , pruned nodes are worthless because they add nothing of value.

And I responded that 3 different block explorer would have 3x8 connections for a total of 24.

How can you be sure about that? You have to trust the block explorers while the technology promotes the opposite. By running your own node, you trust no one. Don't you like the maximum number of connections? Increase it, it's in the source code. Be your own block explorer.

You are trusting those 8 connecting nodes to not sybil you with a false chain.

And I responded that 3 different block explorer would have 3x8 connections for a total of 24.
Making a sybil attack 3X harder.

Is there any proof that a block explorer shows legit information of a blockchain?  There is not.

Is there any proof that your node is not on a fork, without looking at block explorer or another not onsite node.
Nope, you are trusting those 8 connected nodes, where as 3 different block explorers give you 24 total different nodes.

Using 3 different block explorers gives greater verification than any single node, no matter what you incorrectly belief.

This is the last post, I shall make about this, because if you still can't comprehend it.
Well not really my problem.

[BlackHatCoiner]

The most famous example I can think of is the Genesis block's address balance where majority of block explorers are showing the wrong balance.

What's the genesis block's address' balance is debatable. It's 68 BTC whereas 50 of those are unspendable. There are other unspendable outputs as well, such as those with OP_RETURN or those which had "0x14" replaced with "0x00" and are provably gone. Shouldn't it show there's a balance?

But, thanks for mentioning it.

[shitpost]

As always, franky pushes his own agenda and constantly twists my words. Sorry, but you don't get my attention.

You are trusting those 8 connecting nodes to not sybil you with a false chain.

A sybil attack requires computational effort besides full nodes left running. There was a thread made in 2011 regarding this[1]. By the same reasoning, I also trust a billionaire for not deciding to attack the network.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4335.0

This is the last post, I shall make about this, because if you still can't comprehend it.
Well not really my problem.

And it has been repeatedly told you that you verify nothing when you visit a block explorer. Also, it's mentioned that you don't know their outbound connections, which is little significant due to the former.

[franky1]

You are trusting those 8 connecting nodes to not sybil you with a false chain.

A sybil attack requires computational effort besides full nodes left running. There was a thread made in 2011 regarding this[1]. By the same reasoning, I also trust a billionaire for not deciding to attack the network.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4335.0

you do realise the network structure is far different now, compared to how it was in 2011.. right?
in 2011 full node features were default. people didnt run hundreds of nodes on amazon servers..

but now they do.. meaning the ability to mess with the network is now easier

not all nodes are full nodes and thousands of nodes are hosted on centralised servers. the 'computational effort' is not the same as it was in 2011

did you know that if you just search bitnodes.
out of ~14.8k nodes shown on bitnodes.. only 5.6k 38% are full nodes
https://bitnodes.io/nodes/?q=1037
yep the 1037 is an important number in the useragent

[pooya87]

yep the 1037 is an important number in the useragent

There is nothing special about NODE_BLOOM flag to make it "important" when you look at nodes. The SPV clients aren't really using this feature and the only implementation I knew of wasn't popular to begin with.
The only important flags are NODE_NETWORK and NODE_WITNESS which is equal to 9. If you are checking pruned nodes that makes it 1033 with NODE_NETWORK_LIMITED flag.

[BlackHatCoiner]

you do realise the network structure is far different now, compared to how it was in 2011.. right?

With computational effort, I refer to mining.

The difficulty has increased from few terahashes per second to hundreds of exahashes per second. It's much harder to gain the required computational power to accomplish a sybil attack without looking suspicious to your victims. Just having the IP addresses and the computers that are running a Bitcoin client isn't going to harm anyone.

[NotATether]

Open Public Blockchain , no privacy, saying anything else is lying to yourself.
You should study the effects of cross referencing in Forensic accounting.

Complete and total anonymity in any crypto network is obviously not possible but most protocols' architectures design the information leakage to be as little as possible, therefore most privacy breaches happen after you correlate your name to an address on some web service.