Author: Peter Vessenes 2012-04-30 20:54:37
Published on: 2012-04-30T20:54:37+00:00
The discussion in this context revolves around a proposal to improve the availability of blocks in Bitcoin. One member proposes adding a checksum for the blocks to save bandwidth among behaving nodes, but another argues that bandwidth is not the bottleneck of the Bitcoin system and it is the immense time needed to validate the blockchain. Clients should never send blocks first, but always an inv packet, then request the block. There is also a suggestion to allow nodes to request upload and download blocks that have already been partially downloaded, which could be done by modifying the existing methods of upload/download or by adding a new method using HTTP/HTTPS or something similar. However, this proposal is not necessary, as one could download the (initial) blockchain outside the Bitcoin protocol from some http server or even pass it along on a USB stick. It would still be substantial download even if partial blocks are used. The discussion shows that while there are different suggestions to improve the availability of blocks, some members argue that Bitcoin does not need to optimize every aspect and focus on the big bits that matter while keeping everything working with minimal changes.
Updated on: 2023-06-06T04:12:00.125636+00:00