[Bitcoin-development] Blockchain archival

[Luke-Jr]

On Saturday, September 07, 2013 11:21:31 PM rob.golding at astutium.com wrote:
> > bitcoin protocol needs an archival system so the blockchain doesn't
> > become too big to download
> 
> Some people may want it all ...
> 
> Balance at Point-In-Time summaries (say up to the penultimate
> difficulty adjustment) would be one simple way.
> And make new-adopters get up and running in minutes not days, which can
> only be a good thing.

There's no reason to require the full blockchain download before being up and 
running. Bitcoin-Qt 0.9 will (probably) have Pieter's work in this area to be 
usable very quickly, and download/verify the history in the background 
(there's no way to be completely trust-free without this).

> If going that route, then solutions to the 'consolidate addresses/wallets'
> question and formal 'discard' of addresses could get addressed.

Not sure what you mean here. Addresses and wallets are two completely 
different things. Addresses are single-use destinations that point to a wallet 
(which is itself private and unknown to the network).

Luke