Libbitcoin

• Libbitcoin’s forthcoming version 4 has posted a benchmark showing a one-hour blockchain sync time on a US$360 machine

Problems with Bitcoin Core

• The recent spam attack beginning in Feb 2023 and continuing until the present, has caused the utxoset to balloon in size from 4GB to 12GB in less than two years
• This has caused Raspberry Pi 4Bs to no longer be able to sync the blockchain in a reasonable amount of time
• How long does a blockchain sync usually take?
• How long is “reasonable”?
• Why is it important for cheap machines to be able to sync bitcoin?

The Libbitcoin Benchmark

• The benchmark configuration was equivalent to “assumevalid=840000” in Bitcoin Core
• Libbitcoin’s architecture does not include an in-ram “utxoset”
• Why does this architecture potentially fix the vulnerability revealed by the spam attack mentioned above?