Author: John Newbery 2020-05-05 17:09:33
Published on: 2020-05-05T17:09:33+00:00
The bitcoin security model relies heavily on running a full node, which has seen severe regressions in recent years. However, the deployment of BIP 157 could lead to an effective DDoS on the full node network if a large number of BIP 157 clients arise. The arguments against light clients are that they are a burden on full nodes and that there won't be enough full nodes to serve them. People might build products that depend on altruistic nodes serving data, which is unsustainable, and at some point, light clients will need to pay for services. BIP 157 offers several advantages over existing light client technologies, including being unique for a block, which means they can easily be cached, and less possibility for DoS/waste resources on the serving node. To serve filters, a node user needs to download the latest version, set `-blockfilterindex=basic` to build the compact filters index, and set `-peercfilters` to serve them over P2P. This is an optional, off-by-default feature, and no one is forcing anyone to do anything.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T01:11:35.529869+00:00