Author: Jonas Schnelli 2016-02-29 10:29:05
Published on: 2016-02-29T10:29:05+00:00
The author proposes a way to reduce the bootstrap time and network usage of bitcoin nodes by loading a pre-generated UTXO-set datafile. The UTXO-set will be deterministically linearized at a specified height and appended with a serialized form of the current chain-index up to the specified height, which is then hashed with a double SHA256. A group of developers will produce and reproduce the corresponding hash and sign it with ECDSA. Full node client implementations that support bootstrapping from a pre-generated UTXO-set need to include a set of pubkeys from trusted developers, the hash (or hashes) of the pre-generated UTXO-set-datafile(s), and n signatures of the hash(es) from a subset of developers defined in 1). To guarantee the integrity of developer pubkeys & signatures, methods like the current gitian build must be used. New nodes could download a copy of the pre-generated UTXO-set, hash it, verify the hash against the allowed UTXO-sets, verify the ECDSA signatures from various developers, and continue bootstrapping from the specified height if the users accept the amount of valid signatures. Sharing of the pre-generated UTXO-set can be done over CDNs, BitTorrent or any other file hosting solution. It would also be possible to extend the bitcoin p2p layer with features to distribute/share such a pre-generated UTXO-set.
Updated on: 2023-06-11T04:12:31.410103+00:00