[bitcoin-dev] Forget dormant UTXOs without confiscating bitcoin

[Gregory Maxwell]

On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 9:17 AM, Chris Priest <cp368202 at ohiou.edu> wrote:
>> In none of these cases do you lose anything.
>
> Nor do you gain anything. Archive nodes will still need to exist

Not every node is an archive node; that's even the case today.
Lowering the resource requirements to independently enforce the rules
of the system is highly virtuous.

> precisely because paper wallets don't include UTXO data. This is like
> adding the ability to partially seed a movie with bittorrent.
[...]
> Every paper wallet would have to be re-printed with UTXO data

They are not printed now with UTXO data
(txid:vout:scriptpubkey:amount), and unless you start and fully
synchronize (or are running a full node) you already cannot author a
transaction without that data. The private key is already not enough,
and no Bitcoin node will just give you what you need to know.

The only additional information JL2012's scheme would add would be the
hash tree fragments to show membership; and the same places that
currently give you what is required to author a transaction could
provide it for you.

> included. It doesn't even solve the core problem because someone can
> still flood the network with lots of UTXOs, as long as they spend them
> quickly.

The system already inhibits the rate new UTXO can be added; but we're
still left with the perpetually growing history that contains many
lost and otherwise unspendable outputs.