Question on Bitcoin Core, and Hello new here.

[savocado]

Hello community, new here. I have been interested in bitcoin and crypto-coins for a while now and have decided to make the plunge into experimenting with moving some funds around and holding some of my wealth outside of major financial institutions.

I have a small question to ask.

A number of months ago when I tried downloading the blockchain I never actually was able to finish synching it. If I wanted to hold my own bitcoins, on my own PC, in my own wallet do I need to wait for the entire blockchain to finish before I can make a transfer?

It doesn't seem possible for me because of where I live internet is slow, every block gets bigger and bigger. If I can't finish a synch can I still transfer coins to and from my wallet? Thanks for any help.

[1715439664]

1715439664

[hilariousandco]

A number of months ago when I tried downloading the blockchain I never actually was able to finish synching it. If I wanted to hold my own bitcoins, on my own PC, in my own wallet do I need to wait for the entire blockchain to finish before I can make a transfer?

It doesn't seem possible for me because of where I live internet is slow, every block gets bigger and bigger. If I can't finish a synch can I still transfer coins to and from my wallet? Thanks for any help.

Yes, you need to wait with that specific client, however, you can use a different 'light' client like electrum or even an online blockchain.info one that doesn't download the blockchain and you can have funds sent and received instantly.

[savocado]

Yes, you need to wait with that specific client, however, you can use a different 'light' client like electrum or even an online blockchain.info one that doesn't download the blockchain and you can have funds sent and received instantly.

But do I need to wait until exactly the moment it has downloaded the entire blockchain? And when that happens if my internet speed can't keep up with the growing blockchain size how would I be able to use or withdraw my bitcoins?

It seems like when I tried earlier last year I could never get to complete the sync.

[DannyHamilton]

Yes, you need to wait with that specific client, however, you can use a different 'light' client like electrum or even an online blockchain.info one that doesn't download the blockchain and you can have funds sent and received instantly.

But do I need to wait until exactly the moment it has downloaded the entire blockchain?

With Electrum and MultiBit, you shouldn't need to store the entire blockchain.

With Bitcoin Core, you only need to synchronize to the block where your received bitcoins were confirmed.  After that you should be able to send a transaction without needing to wait for the rest fo the blockchain to synchronize.  Of course, you won't see the transaction that you send confirm until you synchronize that block.

And when that happens if my internet speed can't keep up with the growing blockchain size how would I be able to use or withdraw my bitcoins?

If you truly can't keep up, then you will fall farther and farther behind, causing you to wait longer and longer before you can see any bitcoins received in your wallet and before you can send them.

With the current protocol, the blockchain is guaranteed to grow by less than 6 megabytes per hour.  That's an internet bandwidth of less than 14 kilobits per second.  14.4 kbit/s dial-up modems have existed since the early 1990's.  Are you saying your internet speed is slower than an 1990's dial-up modem?  If that's true, then you should definitely NOT use Bitcoin Core and should instead consider one of the lightweight wallets such as Electrum or MultiBit.

It seems like when I tried earlier last year I could never get to complete the sync.

How long did you wait?  How many blocks did it receive when you gave up?  How many blocks was it receiving per hour?

[cr1776]

How long did you wait?  How many blocks did it receive when you gave up?  How many blocks was it receiving per hour?

Also, to ask a bit more than DannyH asked, what computer?  What OS?  How much memory?  What speed CPU?  You just said "PC".

What speed is your connection?  


Think about this:  The current largest block is about 1MB (1,000,000 bytes) , every ten minutes (on average, maybe 7-8 sometime when hash rate is increasing rapidly), meaning, even if it is every 7 minutes on average you have:
1,000,000 bytes/(60 seconds/minute * 7 minutes) = about 2300 bytes/sec bandwidth needed to keep up.  A 28.8kbit/s dialup modem should be faster than that.

Full blocks are not the norm so you should be able to keep up with an even slower connection.  (This is just downstream, not upstream speed).  This is why we're are curious about the specs.

As others have said, if the bottleneck really is connection, one of the light wallets makes the most sense.

:-)

[ferman]

what if noone use bitcoin-core?

[cr1776]

what if noone use bitcoin-core?

That depends on the actual question:
1. What if no one uses Bitcoin Core and they only try to use light wallets?  No one is processing transactions, building blocks etc.
or
2. What if no one uses Bitcoin Core but uses some other non-light wallet?  Everyone is just using different software.  If the question 3 years ago had been "What if no one is using Bitcoin-qt 0.3" then they'd see the answer today.  It is just running different software.

#1 - If no one is processing transactions or blocks, bitcoin is dead.
#2 - Things continue using different software.


#1 won't happen as long as there is economically valuable activity with bitcoin.  And there is plenty of economic activity now.