Author: Jorge Timón 2015-09-18 20:37:05
Published on: 2015-09-18T20:37:05+00:00
A proposal was made by Rune Kjær Svendsen on the Bitcoin development mailing list to include UTXO (unspent transaction output) set hashes in newly created blocks. This would allow new nodes to derive a UTXO set that could be used to verify new transactions without having to retrieve the entire blockchain history, which is currently required. The UTXO set hash would be included in the block header and miners would be forced to maintain an up-to-date UTXO set in order to build on top of the chain with the most proof-of-work. This proposal would save bandwidth for Bitcoin Core nodes and ease the initial syncing process, although it would require additional computation to hash the UTXO set. While some have raised concerns about the security implications of relying on UTXO set commitments, Svendsen argues that this change would not reduce the security of the protocol and that all nodes have the option of deciding which level of security they want.
Updated on: 2023-06-10T22:48:34.567179+00:00