Author: Kalle Rosenbaum 2017-12-18 21:51:40
Published on: 2017-12-18T21:51:40+00:00
In a mailing list post, Kalle Rosenbaum raised the question of why a full node that does initial block download also must download witnesses if they are going to skip verification anyway. He suggested that witnessless nodes could be created, which would only be witnessless for blocks up to a certain point, and would then be fully verified thereafter. Witnessless nodes would be able to sync faster because they need to download less data to calculate their UTXO set. They would also more quickly be able to provide full service to SPV wallets and its local wallets as well as serving blocks to other witnessless nodes with same or higher assumevalid block. However, there is concern that witnessless nodes could risk dividing the network in two parts, one witnessless and one with full nodes, with few connections between the parts. The reasons not to implement witnessless nodes were not addressed.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T23:09:14.865348+00:00