Author: Amir Taaki 2011-12-18 18:47:54
Published on: 2011-12-18T18:47:54+00:00
The email conversation dated December 18, 2011 between Alan Reiner and theymos focused on the security model of Bitcoin. Reiner argued that a full node (Satoshi client) has the same level of security as a headers-only client since both base their verification decisions on computations that end with comparing hashes to the longest-chain headers. He also suggested that a light-weight, headers-only node could alleviate the issue of downloading an entire block to get one transaction by requesting merkle-trees directly. Additionally, Reiner believed that blockchain pruning is critical for all nodes as it makes it easy for anyone to act as a full node and avoids centralization/power-corporation issues. Furthermore, in response to Jordan Mack's concern about header-only clients, theymos argued that a headers-only client is better than trusting anyone since an attacker needs more than 50% of the network's computational power to trick such clients.
Updated on: 2023-06-05T00:48:56.036293+00:00