Satoshi's paper mentions that storage requirements for the blockchain can be reduced by deleting transactions whose outputs have been spent.
If I understand correctly, this technique can only be used for reducing *storage* requirements, not *bandwidth* needed for the initial chain download by a high-security client that doesn't trust any of its peers -- right? The rule is "trust the longest valid chain of blocks". Part of a block being "valid" is that each transaction's inputs are unspent and their sum exceeds the transaction's outputs unless it is a coinbase. This cannot be verified for "stubbed out" transactions -- they have outputs but no inputs, and aren't coinbases. So a paranoid client booting up for the first time needs to be given an un-stubbed chain, right? Of course, if a client decided to accept a stubbed blocks only when the sum of the difficulties in the blocks after it exceeds some number N, then attacking it could be made very expensive by picking a large enough N. Please let me know if I have misunderstood something. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ridiculously easy VDI. With Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, you don't need a complex infrastructure or vast IT resources to deliver seamless, secure access to virtual desktops. With this all-in-one solution, easily deploy virtual desktops for less than the cost of PCs and save 60% on VDI infrastructure costs. Try it free! http://p.sf.net/sfu/Citrix-VDIinabox _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
