Author: Peter Todd 2013-07-23 10:17:28
Published on: 2013-07-23T10:17:28+00:00
Andy Parkins proposed a "Partial UTXO" mode which he believes would lower the demand on full nodes. In this mode, users would only fetch blocks that contain transactions needed to verify their balances. If everyone with a wallet did this, it would distribute the blockchain massively, resulting in more nodes in the network and reducing the load on full nodes. However, Peter Todd warned that miners could get away without keeping the entire chain provided they don't often try to mine transactions spending UTXOs that they haven't verified themselves. This threatens the security of bitcoin, and miners will have to prove they possess the full UTXO set in the future. Todd also pointed out that UTXO data currently requires full trust in whomever is providing it until UTXO commitments are implemented. Although one can go and ask someone else the same question, it's easy to lie. It is far easier to maintain a headers-only block chain, but this situation does not provide full security.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T14:19:55.000359+00:00