Author: jl2012 at xbt.hk 2015-12-13 18:11:41
Published on: 2015-12-13T18:11:41+00:00
In this message, Danny Thorpe is questioning the behavior and cost of a proposal to avoid keeping ancient UTXOs in memory. Chris Priest responded to this by stating that while it won't kill Bitcoin, it won't make it any better. The proposal is meant to address the issue of thousands of volunteer full nodes being required to store a UTXO record because someone paid $0.01 to an anonymous miner 100 years ago. The proposal suggests having three types of full nodes: archive nodes, full UTXO nodes, and lite UTXO nodes. Currently, if someone only has a private key, they must consult either an archive node or a full UTXO node for the latest UTXO state to spend their coin. However, there are no lite UTXO nodes, and such a node would not work beyond block 420000. With the proposed softfork, if the UTXO is created within the last 420000 blocks, the key holder may consult any type of full node, including a lite UTXO node, to create the transaction. If the UTXO has been confirmed by more than 420000 blocks, a lite UTXO node cannot provide the necessary information to spend the coin. Only an archive node may do so. The proposal requires extra information, such as knowing the TXO state and if there was any spending of any block Y UTXOs after block (Y + 420000). The membership proof needed cannot be constructed without this information. The proposal aims to make things more efficient and avoid miners and full nodes being unable to handle the UTXO set. There might be more efficient proposals with similar goals.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T02:04:17.955770+00:00