Would an Armageddon and new Genesis be possible?

[FrankS]

Seeing how huge a full copy of the blockchain has become, it's getting more and more frustrating to create your own full node.

So I was wondering: could there be an "Armageddon", with the Status Quo of all addresses and their balances in a special (oversized) block that serves as a new Genesis block?

Of course that would cut off all transaction history, which is not neccessarily a bad thing, depending on who you ask.

It could also "flatten" addresses, and consolidate all inputs to remove dust.

[ABCbits]

Bitcoin community very unlikely to accept such idea. But on technical side, you'll face some difficulty such as certain output (such as P2PK and P2MS) actually doesn't have address. If you ever check on block explorer, it usually display wrong information, show error message it can't parse the address or show the raw output. But if this "armageddon" actually preserve all UTXO, then i would say it's technically possible.

[Cookdata]

Seeing how huge a full copy of the blockchain has become, it's getting more and more frustrating to create your own full node.

If it's frustrating running full node, you have option to run prune node as relief you know.

So I was wondering: could there be an "Armageddon", with the Status Quo of all addresses and their balances in a special (oversized) block that serves as a new Genesis block?

Of course that would cut off all transaction history, which is not neccessarily a bad thing, depending on who you ask.

It's bad if you have to trust in Bitcoin. The essence of node is defeated with your idea, you don't have to trust anyone but verify every transactions from genesis to date blocks if you are going to run a node.

It could also "flatten" addresses, and consolidate all inputs to remove dust.

Maybe you could have also added to help removed non financial records on the blockchain. 

Worst suggestion if you ask me.

[Upgrade00]

There's a thread for that here by LoyceV; List of all Bitcoin Addresses with a Balance

Of course that would cut off all transaction history, which is not neccessarily a bad thing, depending on who you ask.

Without the transactions this is not a replacement for a full node, it's just a repository of addresses. You can go for a printed node to save space and still contribute to the decentralization of the network.

[LoyceV]

it's getting more and more frustrating to create your own full node.

You've been here since 2011. All you need to do is download 1-2 GB per week to keep your blockchain up to date.

So I was wondering: could there be an "Armageddon", with the Status Quo of all addresses and their balances in a special (oversized) block that serves as a new Genesis block?

You can create your own Bitcoin Core Fork that does exactly this, but I don't think many people are going to run it.

It could also "flatten" addresses, and consolidate all inputs to remove dust.

In this case your blocks will be incompatible with the rest of the world.

I think you're missing the point of a blockchain: "a chain of blocks". If you don't want to download all of it, just use Electrum. If you want to verify everything, just sync Bitcoin Core from the very first block ever. Why would you want to trust someone just so you can avoid downloading and verifying 700 GB of data? If I wanted to trust people, I'd use an ETF.