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I think that the sustainability issue can be managed with bloom filters etc, but you are correct. Under the current model where the entire block chain must be i

I think that the sustainability issue can be managed with bloom filters etc, but you are correct. Under the current model where the entire block chain must be in the possession of every client, Bitcoin is not remotely close to sustainable. Imagine if, in order to process credit cards, you had to download transaction data for every credit card transaction in the history of credit cards. What surprises me is that the original creators, who were obviously very intelligent, didn't anticipate this becoming a problem and create the system from the ground up to address it.

jeremyjh 14y ago
They never expected anyone to actually use it.
smithzvk 14y ago
So, what I don't get is why can't I, as a user, just pick how far back I want to go? Why can't some trusted party, like bitcoin.org post a their best guess for the block chain state 10 days ago. Isn't that sufficient to determine with a high level of certainty that I am on the correct branch and that there has been no funny business in the history?
- downandout 14y ago
  Yes, it is, but the whole point of Bitcoin is to not rely on any central entity. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be entirely possible if we are to make Bitcoin mainstream.
  - smithzvk 14y ago
    I guess I long ago decided that Bitcoin was interesting enough with just the possibility of not having to rely on a central authority/entity. More to the point, however, is that this isn't really an issue of an authority, but rather an issue of trust. If I for whatever reason decided not to trust Bitcoin.org, someone else could take their place. For instance, I could get my recent state of the block-chain from a pal that I trust to do the actual task of verifying the full chain. I could even pay that person some fee periodically for providing that service. You could probably come up with a distributed, fraud resistant, method of providing recent block chain states where many sources would have to be simultaneously compromised for any attack.

jeremyjh 14y ago

They never expected anyone to actually use it.

smithzvk 14y ago

So, what I don't get is why can't I, as a user, just pick how far back I want to go? Why can't some trusted party, like bitcoin.org post a their best guess for the block chain state 10 days ago. Isn't that sufficient to determine with a high level of certainty that I am on the correct branch and that there has been no funny business in the history?

downandout 14y ago
Yes, it is, but the whole point of Bitcoin is to not rely on any central entity. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be entirely possible if we are to make Bitcoin mainstream.
- smithzvk 14y ago
  I guess I long ago decided that Bitcoin was interesting enough with just the possibility of not having to rely on a central authority/entity. More to the point, however, is that this isn't really an issue of an authority, but rather an issue of trust. If I for whatever reason decided not to trust Bitcoin.org, someone else could take their place. For instance, I could get my recent state of the block-chain from a pal that I trust to do the actual task of verifying the full chain. I could even pay that person some fee periodically for providing that service. You could probably come up with a distributed, fraud resistant, method of providing recent block chain states where many sources would have to be simultaneously compromised for any attack.