4 ms·

It took me about 5 days to sync a new Bitcoin wallet. Until they fix this problem Bitcoin can never be a serious player.

AndrewDucker 14y ago
Don't use the standard wallet. Multibit syncs a lot faster.
tlrobinson 14y ago
Or more likely, most "average" users won't host their own wallets, they'll use a third-party service (i.e. a bank)
kalleboo 14y ago
It always seemed odd to me that the protocol expects everyone to always have the full blockchain (currently over 2 GB of data). The response is always "when it becomes a problem we'll fix it", but isn't it already a problem for mobile use etc? The other problem I never see mentioned is the slow speed in getting transactions confirmed (for me it takes maybe 30 minutes)
- wcoenen 14y ago
  The original bitcoin paper described a "Simplified Payment Verification" which doesn't require the full blockchain. This is used by Bitcoin Wallet for android. Another alternative is to work with a trusted server. This is used by Bitcoin Spinner for Android.
- hackerboos 14y ago
  As I understand you can download the latest Bitcoin transactions (the latest spend of each coin) and discard the rest of the transaction history. The problem being though is that you have to trust some third party to give you the correct information.
Dylan16807 14y ago
You don't need the block chain to use bitcoin. Honestly, there only needs to be one complete copy in total across the entire world. It's just a quirk of the current client that it insists on such a download in an era where it takes more than a few minutes.
akurtzhs 14y ago
Try Electrum http://electrum-desktop.com/ http://electrum-desktop.com/ It uses servers with the full blockchain to verification and has another neat feature - deterministic wallets. You keep the seed around and you can recover the wallet. With the original client, having the appropriate port open/forwarded helps as well, and my understanding is that part of the slow sync is the inefficient database design. It's on the list of #TODOs.
username 14y ago
agreed. If people can't understand bitcoin in at least some basic way they will not use it. Faq's on bitcoin are full of questions which nobody has ever asked. Even bitcoin enthusiasts can't explain bitcoin, because they don't understand it either. constantly changing account/addresses? i don't like it, would rather one account and have payments tagged with sender info. i still have not managed to find out if bitcoin supports this. can't make sense of messaging aspect, labeling, verification , don't understand mining. Ordinary folks will not buy into this if it can not be explained in two short sentences, no matter how logical or robust or brilliant bitcoin might be.

AndrewDucker 14y ago

Don't use the standard wallet. Multibit syncs a lot faster.

tlrobinson 14y ago

Or more likely, most "average" users won't host their own wallets, they'll use a third-party service (i.e. a bank)

kalleboo 14y ago

It always seemed odd to me that the protocol expects everyone to always have the full blockchain (currently over 2 GB of data). The response is always "when it becomes a problem we'll fix it", but isn't it already a problem for mobile use etc? The other problem I never see mentioned is the slow speed in getting transactions confirmed (for me it takes maybe 30 minutes)

wcoenen 14y ago
The original bitcoin paper described a "Simplified Payment Verification" which doesn't require the full blockchain. This is used by Bitcoin Wallet for android. Another alternative is to work with a trusted server. This is used by Bitcoin Spinner for Android.
hackerboos 14y ago
As I understand you can download the latest Bitcoin transactions (the latest spend of each coin) and discard the rest of the transaction history. The problem being though is that you have to trust some third party to give you the correct information.

Dylan16807 14y ago

You don't need the block chain to use bitcoin. Honestly, there only needs to be one complete copy in total across the entire world. It's just a quirk of the current client that it insists on such a download in an era where it takes more than a few minutes.

akurtzhs 14y ago

Try Electrum http://electrum-desktop.com/ http://electrum-desktop.com/ It uses servers with the full blockchain to verification and has another neat feature - deterministic wallets. You keep the seed around and you can recover the wallet. With the original client, having the appropriate port open/forwarded helps as well, and my understanding is that part of the slow sync is the inefficient database design. It's on the list of #TODOs.

username 14y ago

agreed. If people can't understand bitcoin in at least some basic way they will not use it. Faq's on bitcoin are full of questions which nobody has ever asked. Even bitcoin enthusiasts can't explain bitcoin, because they don't understand it either. constantly changing account/addresses? i don't like it, would rather one account and have payments tagged with sender info. i still have not managed to find out if bitcoin supports this. can't make sense of messaging aspect, labeling, verification , don't understand mining. Ordinary folks will not buy into this if it can not be explained in two short sentences, no matter how logical or robust or brilliant bitcoin might be.