Bitcoin Q&A: Initial Blockchain Download
Why is the initial blockchain download and why does it take so long? What performance factors are required? How does a node index the Bitcoin blockchain and synchronise with the network?
Chapters
0:00 Why does it take so long to download the blockchain?
2:36 Takes more than just bandwidth. It also takes CPU and a big amount of disk indexing
3:43 Recommended minimum configuration
This question is from the September monthly Patreon session, which took place on September 29th 2018. If you want early-access to talks and a chance to participate in the monthly live Q&As with Andreas, become a patron:
RELATED:
How do I choose a wallet? –
Secure, tiered storage system –
Hardware wallets and attack surface –
Setting up secure storage devices –
What is a private key? –
How do mneomonic seeds work? –
Using paper wallets –
Wallet design and mass adoption –
Cryptographic primitives –
Public keys vs. addresses –
Re-using addresses –
Passphrases and seed storage –
Coin selection and privacy –
Multi-signature and distributed storage –
Nonces, mining, and quantum computing –
Is quantum computing a threat? –
Spam transactions and Child Pays For Parent –
Orphaned blocks and stuck transactions –
Denominations and voluntary burning –
What are “bitcoin days destroyed”? –
Miners, pools, and consensus –
Software distribution security –
Protocol development security –
Geopolitics and state-sponsored attacks –
How to get people to care about security –
Honest nodes and consensus –
Why running a node is important –
Andreas M. Antonopoulos is a technologist and serial entrepreneur who has become one of the most well-known and respected figures in bitcoin.
Follow on Twitter: @aantonop
Website:
He is the author of two books: “Mastering Bitcoin,” published by O’Reilly Media and considered the best technical guide to bitcoin; “The Internet of Money,” a book about why bitcoin matters.
Subscribe to the channel to learn more about Bitcoin & open blockchains; click on the red bell to enable notifications about new videos!
MASTERING BITCOIN, 2nd Edition:
Translations of MASTERING BITCOIN:
THE INTERNET OF MONEY, v1:
THE INTERNET OF MONEY, v2:
Translations of THE INTERNET OF MONEY:
Spanish, ‘Internet del Dinero’ (v1) –
French, ‘L’internet de l’argent’ (v1) –
Russian, ‘Интернет денег’ (v1) –
Vietnamese, ‘Internet Của Tiền Tệ’ (v1) –
MASTERING ETHEREUM (Q4):
Music: “Unbounded” by Orfan (
Outro Graphics: Phneep (
Outro Art: Rock Barcellos (
Join the aantonop Channel:
Source link
seems authoritative, however, someone needs to explain WHY I MUST verify the blocks. Let's just assume my goal is peek at the data and not actually the authoritative version. Better yet… why isn't there a simple downloader that just does only and exactly that.
Thanks for clearing that up. My Apollo BTC has a raspberry pi 4 in it, and I’m on my third day of downloading the full blockchain node. I’m on 98%, so guess that means just a few more hours left to go.😁👍
Can I just download a blockchain to a remote amazon server like ec2? Is that safe.
QUESTION: If you have little tech skill, i.e. don't use command prompt to solve issues, how do you set up a Bitcoin Node? I have the hardware (a computer with plenty of disk space) and downloaded the Bitcoin block chain but could not get the node to work, I think the problem was getting my home machine to be a static ip. At least I think that was the issue. I am pretty sure it had to do with my internet connection not talking back to the block chain. I spent a lot of time on the Bitcoin Core website looking at posts and I am pretty sure it is the internet ip that is the problem. I could not find any solution simple enough for my tech neophyte brain to handle.
I know that nodes are critical to the infrastructure of Bitcoin and other crypto and if you want to be more than a sideline investor and you are a true believer, which I am, you want to help and be a part of the infrastructure. The problem is it seems there is no "black box" solution I can buy on Amazon that will set up a node and solve any connection issues. I am surprised this has not been built. If it has please tell us about it. If not please help. 🙂
Don't they pull out the voting rules and hard code the softfork results?
Strange.. i always thought that the speed limit for the initial download is the upload capabilities of 8 public nodes that provide the whole data package to mine node..
Invest in FGC Fantasy Gold A real use case in fantasy and esports.
Forget Bitcoin, get some FGC (Fantasy Gold), real use and way better project!
good and useful videos don't miss
Crypto markets should trade against stablecoins not btc/eth. It makes a lot more sense. By the way, my favorite crypto is FGC. It's one of a very few cryptos with a real world use.
The bandwidth your peers are sending blocks can be a bottleneck too. Another nitpick – it is the latency (in msec) of a hard drive or SSD that matter, not bandwidth (in MB/sec) as such.
Smashed the like
Wow
How does a node know to emulate soft forks in the protocol for specific blocks? Is that hard coded into the node implementation? Isn't the definition of a soft fork that it is backwards compatible so why does this have to happen? I assume that the blocks are not marked with a software version because there is no one version of bitcoin software as it is a protocol.
so… why being a node matters ?
That's where some forks have their own enhancements. Bitcore has a blockchain size ~950 mb, and a blocksize 10MB/20MB SegWit
Are bootstrapped appliance-like machines safe? Isn't that route skipping a lot of what was just mentioned? I'm surprised there's a market for them
Lookup how to write a config file for your node. you can crank up the ram to 8gb+ if you have it available. I wish I knew that the first time. Really speeds it up.
I got into ETH back in early 2017 and had no problem DL'ing/syncing blockchain – I then foolishly thought I had to have my chain sync'd to make a transaction and thought I was SoL (pressed for time) because it wouldn't DL/Sync up.
Make sure you have a decent hard drive, don't want that shit bricking on you//unable to keep up with rest of chain. Solid state(s) is/are a great choice, much cheaper now days too than when I first built this PoS, lmao….
Cheers Andreas.
always a pleasure learning from you @aantonop! thanks