Faster loading

[gondel]

Hello
Is there a way that the wallet loads faster when you dawnload it for first time? I know that it is loading for ages if you install it for first time. And also if the blockchain grows with time is the loading will be slower and slower?
Thanks!

[byt411]

Hello
Is there a way that the wallet loads faster when you dawnload it for first time? I know that it is loading for ages if you install it for first time. And also if the blockchain grows with time is the loading will be slower and slower?
Thanks!

You can use a lightweight client such as Electrum, which doesn't download all the blocks.
Or you could download the Bitcoin bootstrap.dat, which is almost all the blocks. You can get that through direct download or torrent, which is better than random nodes.

[joshraban76]

I take backup of all the files of the bitcoin folder, like wallet file and such.

Then I re-index the backup, and it usually takes one day or such to be complete.

This topic will help you

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=317883

[erono]

Users don't do it because you need to download the whole blockchain, which as you noted is a real pain. Also, if you don't keep the computer running 24/7, it ends up damaging the network health.

[paythrough_team]

Bitcoin blockchain is very bloated, is Bitcoin's trouble.

[btchris]

Or you could download the Bitcoin bootstrap.dat, which is almost all the blocks. You can get that through direct download or torrent, which is better than random nodes.

The Armory folk maintain a bootstrap.dat torrent you can use. Visit here for the current link to their torrent file: https://s3.amazonaws.com/bitcoinarmory-media/announce.txt. As of today, it's only a couple of months behind.

Once you have the bootstrap.dat file all downloaded, place it in the Bitcoin directory (%appdata%\Bitcoin on windows) before you start it for the first time, and that will speed things up a bit. You can also ask Bitcoin to use more RAM with the -dbcache=# command-line option (I use a value of 2048 (that's in MB) on my 8 GB machine on only the first start, YMMV). If you have an SSD, the initial indexing and the remaining block downloads can be as short as 3 hours. (Once done, the Bitcoin client renames the file to bootstrap.dat.old, and you can delete it.)

The Armory client tries to automate all this, but I've had some issues with it in the past (which were probably my fault...) so I usually do it manually.

[btchris]

Users don't do it because you need to download the whole blockchain, which as you noted is a real pain. Also, if you don't keep the computer running 24/7, it ends up damaging the network health.

Damaging network health...? Can you explain?

[vm1990]

Users don't do it because you need to download the whole blockchain, which as you noted is a real pain. Also, if you don't keep the computer running 24/7, it ends up damaging the network health.

Damaging network health...? Can you explain?

Bitcoin-qt downloads its block chain from other wallets running the full client. The less full clients out there the slower it is to download the full block chain. And the slower bitcoin works in general. its like a torrent with alot of downloads and only a handfull of seeders

[shorena]

Users don't do it because you need to download the whole blockchain, which as you noted is a real pain. Also, if you don't keep the computer running 24/7, it ends up damaging the network health.

Damaging network health...? Can you explain?

Bitcoin-qt downloads its block chain from other wallets running the full client. The less full clients out there the slower it is to download the full block chain. And the slower bitcoin works in general. its like a torrent with alot of downloads and only a handfull of seeders

Yes, but when Im not uploading I am not hurting the network I just dont contribute. I dont know if "erono" meant that.

[vm1990]

Users don't do it because you need to download the whole blockchain, which as you noted is a real pain. Also, if you don't keep the computer running 24/7, it ends up damaging the network health.

Damaging network health...? Can you explain?

Bitcoin-qt downloads its block chain from other wallets running the full client. The less full clients out there the slower it is to download the full block chain. And the slower bitcoin works in general. its like a torrent with alot of downloads and only a handfull of seeders

Yes, but when Im not uploading I am not hurting the network I just dont contribute. I dont know if "erono" meant that.

Your still hurting the network in a way as your taking without giving back which means the networks supporting your client and not getting anything out of it. Not that it really matters I think he just wanted to point out that it will damage the network as more people are doing it

[shorena]

-snip-
Your still hurting the network in a way as your taking without giving back which means the networks supporting your client and not getting anything out of it. Not that it really matters I think he just wanted to point out that it will damage the network as more people are doing it

When I turn my computer off at night its not taking anything. When I keep it running all day I leech some in the morning and give back the rest of the day. I dont see how I hurt the network this way.

The point was - not running 24/7 = hurting the network.

My point is you can contribute 12h/day and its helping.*

Did I miss something that this is wrong?

* port forwarded, reasonable fast upload etc. E.g. I updated a few minutes ago and allready have 9 connections open 2 MB in, 64MB out. Dont tell me thats not helping just because I dont run the node 24/7

[btchris]

Yes, but when Im not uploading I am not hurting the network I just dont contribute. I dont know if "erono" meant that.

Your still hurting the network in a way as your taking without giving back which means the networks supporting your client and not getting anything out of it. Not that it really matters I think he just wanted to point out that it will damage the network as more people are doing it

I certainly understand that point of view, but I thought that it was generally understood that as Bitcoin continues to get more popular, there will be a diminishing percentage of full nodes compared to SPV/lite nodes. Of course it's always good to encourage the use of a full node client, but I see no reason to discourage the use of an SPV/lite client... just my 2c.