Author: Zell Faze 2012-04-30 20:02:47
Published on: 2012-04-30T20:02:47+00:00
Amir Taaki, a bitcoin developer, stated that the proposed Bitcoin Improvement Proposal (BIP) to improve the availability of blocks is an optimization that is not needed because bandwidth is not the bottleneck of the Bitcoin system. He also stated that clients should never send blocks first and this change will cause disruption and bring little benefit. On the other hand, Rebroad suggested adding a hash to the block header to enable nodes to reject an already downloaded block, which would aid in saving bandwidth among well-behaving nodes. Wladimir noted that it would make sense for clients to be able to reject blocks they already have, but there would be no need for a BIP if you want to somehow fetch the block chain outside the bitcoin protocol. It could be downloaded from some http server or passed along on a USB stick. Currently, nodes with restrictive or slow internet have options such as going via a tor proxy; however, the problem with multiple receptions of the same block still occurs due to latency. If one is behind such a slow internet connection and concerned about every bit of bandwidth, it is better to run a lightweight node like Electrum.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T04:12:54.361552+00:00